


A Veteran's Affair

by WatermelonTuesdays



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Best Friends, But He's Learning, Commitment Kink, Cuddling & Snuggling, Day At The Beach, Discussions of panic attacks, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Gratuitous Beach Scene, HOW did I forget to tag PTSD??, Hurt/Comfort, I don't know if those are real kinks but Shiro's for sure got 'em, Intimacy, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Keith (Voltron) is a Good Friend, Love Confessions, M/M, Panic Attacks, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rimming, Shiro (Voltron) is a Good Friend, Slow Burn, Slow Sex, Soft Boys, Veterans, but they do talk quite a bit about about their anxiety etc, intimacy kink, intimate sex, just so much comfort, keith too, marked explicit for the last chapter, somebody hug these boys OMG, the gang's all here, there shouldn't be anything triggering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2019-10-21 20:34:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 31,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17649425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WatermelonTuesdays/pseuds/WatermelonTuesdays
Summary: Keith is a veteran who's feeling lost after a bad accident forces him to retire from the air force. He meets Shiro, another vet, at a Trauma Survivors meeting and starts a close friendship that leads to something more.-----“Here.” Shiro slipped his hand into the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out a small stack of business cards. He flipped through them until he found the one he wanted, then handed it over to Keith. “This is my card, it’s got my office and my cell number on it. If you ever need to talk, or if you just want to be around someone who’s been there and who cares, give me a call. Anytime, day or night.”Keith took the card and held it reverently, taking great care to tuck it away safely in his wallet. When he spoke, however, his voice was light and nonchalant, “So, you’re what, like my sponsor?”Shiro chuckled, catching his meaning. “We don’t really do sponsors here. It’s more like I’m…” he dragged out the m in a long hum, like it was a joke for him to search for the word, “your friend.”“Oh.” Keith smiled. “Ok. Thank you.”





	1. The Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys!
> 
> Welcome to my extremely self-indulgent fic where Keith and Shiro cuddle the pain away and also fall in love. Very slowly.
> 
> There are some discussions of panic attacks etc, but I don't get into a great deal of details so hopefully this won't be triggering to anyone. The focus is on how they help each other come down from the attacks, not on dwelling on how they got triggered.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

“Hi, I’m, uh, Shiro. Well, I was First Lieutenant Takashi Shirogane, you know… before… But, you can call me Shiro. I’m sure most of you have seen me around, at the VA clinic, at physio, at the Veteran’s office, and you’ve probably all heard my story. Gunned down in a flight over foreign waters, washed up in enemy territory, held captive for a year before my release could be negotiated. I lost my arm, my sense of smell, and my beach bod.”

He smiled then, and the room murmured with appreciative laughter. It was a large group tonight, probably 30-strong, maybe more. They had been recruiting at the VA office all week, trying to build numbers for the meetings, not because the meetings need numbers but because people need the meetings. Veterans especially need the meetings.

Keith shifted in his chair in the back. He still wasn’t convinced he needed these meetings, but he had made promises to friends and he intended to keep them.

“But that’s not what I wanted to share today. I’m not here to talk about what I’ve lost. And no,” Shiro raised a reassuring hand, his quick eyes catching the expressions around the room, “I’m not here to talk about what I’ve gained either, because we all know that anything we’ve gained isn’t truly a gain. I’ve been retired from service for 3 years now, and physically, I’ve been healed for 2 and a half years. Mentally? Well, that’s something I’m still working on.”

Shiro spoke for another 20 minutes. He told them all, frankly, of his struggles coming back. How he felt like the world had been knocked sideways and there was no way he could right it. How he couldn’t sleep until he would pass out, couldn’t eat until he would sit and binge until he was sick. He told them about losing loved ones, and gaining support from unlikely places. He told them that getting back in touch with his own body, listening to its needs and wants, had helped him find the bridge back to himself. 

“It’s a struggle, still, and I think maybe it always will be. I still have bad days, but I’ve found my way to cope so that not every day is a bad day. And right now, my future is looking bright: not because I’m healed, not because I’m magically cured, but because I know when my bad days come I’m going to get through them just the same way I did before, and there’ll be good days to follow after if I’m just patient enough to see it through. Thank you.”

Keith slumped back into his chair, not realizing he had been leaning off the edge of his seat until he felt the shock of the cold metal through his shirt. 

That had been… not what he had been expecting.

Especially not from Takashi Shirogane. The Takashi Shirogane. The man had been a legend in Keith’s unit, every cadet had dreamed of someday flying with him, but his plane went down just 1 month before Keith started active duty and after that his name was only ever mentioned in hushed tones and reverential whispers. Honestly, Keith had all but forgotten about the man until 6 months ago when he returned from a crash of his own and learned Shiro was now the poster child for the VA and for this community centre Trauma Survivors group. 

Keith watched through guarded eyes as Shiro humbly accepted thanks and congratulations from the crowd as he returned to his seat at the edge of the group. He had expected the great Shirogane to give a bland yet hopeful speech about how it all gets better and they’ll all ride off into the sunset if they just let the VA doctors prescribe their way to happiness. He had expected something empty and placating to try and trick them into staying and returning.

He hadn’t expected honesty. He hadn’t expected to hear how this legendary fighter pilot could no longer sleep without the radio on so that he wouldn’t feel so alone. It hit so close to home it almost hurt; Keith himself couldn’t sleep without the tv on, needing both the light and the sound to comfort him to sleep. It was Hunk who suggested the television, because previously Keith hadn’t even owned one, but Hunk figured it would be better than keeping Lance or Hunk on the phone all night so that they could talk him down every time he woke himself up. Not that they weren’t there for his calls now – they were and always would be – but 8 hour calls every night got expensive fast. 

The other speakers shared stories that were similar to Shiro’s, though none were as compelling as his. Most speakers were veterans, but a few weren’t. There were some car accident survivors, some fire survivors, and one survivor of childhood abuse that left Keith feeling squeamish. 

Afterwards there was food and drinks served along the table at the back wall, and they were encouraged to speak to one another and make connections. Keith had planned on ducking out the minute the speeches were over, but the uncomfortable stirring in his gut mixed with the promising smell of free coffee convinced him to stay a bit longer.

He waited in his seat until most people had either left or made their rounds around the snack table. He then filled a small Styrofoam cup with black coffee from the industrial percolator and eyed the available foods for something that would calm his stomach. 

There was a platter of cheese and crackers in the back. Would it be weird to only take the crackers? Maybe he should take some cheese too, you know, for appearances…

“You’re Keith, right?” a man asked, stepping beside him and reaching past the crackers to some sweet breads.

“Yeah?” Keith sounded wary, but when he looked at the man beside him his eyes widened in surprise. It was Takashi Shirogane – Shiro. How did Shiro know his name?

“Cool,” Shiro said, with as little awkwardness as possible, “Hunk said you’d be coming tonight, he told me to keep an eye out for you.” He hesitated a moment, “I hope that was ok?”

“Uh, yeah, yeah. That’s fine.” 

Keith snatched a handful of crackers and then reached to pull a few choice pieces of cheese from the tray, biding his time until he could force the words out of his mouth. “I really appreciated what you said tonight.” He spoke in a rush, but a quick glance at Shiro’s face told him the man had understood him. “It couldn’t have been easy to share that.”

Shiro gave Keith an understanding smile. He opened his mouth to say more, but just then another man nudged him in his quest to secure a fistful of cheese, so Shiro nodded away from the table and the two men moved back over to the chairs. 

They sat away from the others, who had all mostly started chatting amongst themselves. Shiro sat in the row in front of Keith, turned sideways to speak comfortably, and hanging an arm over the back of the chair.

“It’s not easy, no. The first time’s always hardest. But coming here, and listening to everyone else’s stories, really helped me so I want to be able to do the same for others.”

“I think I get that. Some of the things you said really hit close to home. It’s kind of nice to know that there’s someone else who gets it, you know?” Keith’s eyes swept the room, looking at the 10, maybe 15 people, who had stayed to talk. They were all in the same boat. Or no, maybe they were all in different boats, but they were in the same sea, all there together, lighting candles to let each other know that they’re not alone.

“I do know.” 

The softness in Shiro’s voice prompted Keith to turn back to him. He could see Shiro’s eyes linger on the long, fat scar that lined his cheek. Like Shiro, some of Keith’s battle scars were visible. But those weren’t the ones that were important.

“Do you think, maybe, you’ll come back?” Shiro asked, hopeful for the chance to help someone else. “You don’t have to share, not unless you want to. It’s not a requirement with us. Though, if you stay long enough you’ll probably get roped into making snacks.”

“I think I will, probably. Yeah.” Keith said, surprised to find he actually did intend to return. “Though any snacks I’d bring would be made by Hunk, so…”

“Shh!” Shiro waved a hand, nearly losing his piece of lemon bread in the process, “Hunk’s food is legendary here, if you go around bragging about it you’ll be on snack duty for a year.”

Keith laughed. 

It made sense. Hunk, as engineer for the fighter jets, had worked with every pilot in the area over the last 6 years and his food was renowned through the entire air force base. Of course this group of survivors were acquainted with his cooking. 

They sat in a comfortable silence for a moment, Keith snacking on his crackers, Shiro devouring his small stack of bread and dusting the floor around them with his crumbs.

“I’m glad you decided to come, Keith. I…” he hesitated, getting that look people get when they’re about to say something and they don’t want the other person to take it the wrong way. Keith gave away nothing with his expression, just waited for Shiro to continue. “I don’t know much about what happened, but I know Hunk said you’ve been having a rough time since you came back. And I know you already have a support system with Hunk, and he said you have others…” Shiro asked it like it was a question and Keith nodded. “But it’s still good to have more than one type of support, you know? The more support you have, the more you can lean on when you need it.”

Keith nodded again, looking down at his napkin of cheese he didn’t plan on eating.

“I don’t ask for help very easily. But Lance kind of kicked my ass about it, and ratted me out to Hunk, and it’s been a lot easier with them. So, I want to try.”

“Here.” Shiro slipped his hand into the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out a small stack of business cards. He flipped through them until he found the one he wanted, then handed it over to Keith. “This is my card, it’s got my office and my cell number on it. If you ever need to talk, or if you just want to be around someone who’s been there and who cares, give me a call. Anytime, day or night.”

Keith took the card and held it reverently, taking great care to tuck it away safely in his wallet. When he spoke, however, his voice was light and nonchalant, “So, you’re what, like my sponsor?” 

Shiro chuckled, catching his meaning. “We don’t really do sponsors here. It’s more like I’m…” he dragged out the m in a long hum, like it was a joke for him to search for the word, “your friend.”

“Oh.” Keith smiled. “Ok. Thank you.”

They chatted for a bit about other things, things that weren’t heavy and were easy to talk about. Then Shiro walked Keith to the hallway of the community centre. He stopped at the door and held Keith with a soft hand to his shoulder, “Seriously, Keith. Call me any time. Even if you don’t think it’s important.”

“Yeah, ok.”


	2. Dinner Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith begins to rely on Shiro more and more. Then he invites him to a dinner party to meet his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This starts with Keith having a panic attack, but it doesn't really go into details and hopefully shouldn't trigger anyone. I just like to give a heads up just in case. ^.^

It was 3 months before Keith ever called Shiro, and the first one was something to remember.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Shiro, hey, uh… sorry, I know it’s late, but you said to call, and I’m just – uh, I’m a little, you said to call if, uh… I’m sorry, this was a bad idea…”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Shiro said quickly. He recognized the sounds of panic before he could recognize who was calling, but at 4 am it didn’t really matter who was on the other end. “Don’t hang up, it’s ok. I’m glad you called. Is this Keith?”

“Yes. Hey, hi. Sorry, it’s just…” Keith heaved a loud sigh, “Lance is on duty somewhere across the Atlantic, and Hunk’s on night shift, and I kind of had an episode and I broke my tv, and now I can’t sleep and it’s just… ughh!” Keith’s voice rolled and crescendoed from his panic.

“Ok, Keith, where are you? Do you want me to come over?” Shiro was already out of bed, reaching for the nearest pants.

“No!” Keith cried. “No,” he repeated, calmer, “you don’t need to come. I just need you to talk.”

“Keith, it’s ok, I can be over there in 20 minutes.”

“No, Shiro, I really don’t need that. It’s just – it’s like you said before how you need the radio? I just need to not feel alone. I’m already feeling better, just talking to you.”

“That’s good. I’m really glad you called, Keith.” Shiro dropped yesterday’s sweatpants and eased himself back against his headboard, cradling his phone over his shoulder. “I’m glad you didn’t try and go through this alone.”

“Yeah,” Keith agreed, “I almost didn’t, but then I nearly ripped my wallet in half looking for your card so I figured I owed it to the wallet to call.”

Shiro breathed easier hearing the panic flow quickly out of Keith’s tone.

“I’m glad you did. I was starting to think you never would. And I know that one meeting a month isn’t always enough, especially not at first.”

“Mmm… Hey, Shiro?”

“Yes?”

“Do you have a Shiro to call when you get like this?”

“I have a few people I reach out to, but no one who’s been through it the same way.”

“You can call me too. Whenever you need, same as me. You can rely on me too.”

“I’d… really like that, Keith.”

They talked then, about everything and nothing, until Keith’s voice grew faint and he started to yawn. Then Shiro took over the conversation, speaking idly until he heard Keith’s soft snores. Shiro settled down in his own pillows, his phone still propped against his ear, and continued babbling until he fell asleep as well, just as the first lights of dawn started creeping under his blinds.

The second and third calls came more easily after that, and soon enough they had each other on speed dial. Shiro became Keith’s rock, his guiding light through the storm of his sickness, though he didn’t always call for bad days. Often he called Shiro just to talk, to hear a voice on the other end of the phone and know that he wasn’t alone.

They shared a lot about themselves over the next months. They talked about their days, about their pasts, their hopes for the future, their triggers, their fears: everything. 

The first time Shiro came to Keith’s apartment it was for a happy reason. Keith had orchestrated it that way, had said he wanted to make a good memory for himself. He didn’t say that he didn’t want Shiro’s first visit to be marred by bad days and panic attacks, though he suspected Shiro had already figured that out. Shiro always offered to come see him during those late night calls and Keith had always refused, saying the voice on the phone was all he needed.

He came for a dinner party.

“Just a small one,” Keith assured repeatedly, “my apartment’s small. And I only want people I trust. Just you, Hunk, Lance, and his girlfriend. No stress.”

Keith proceeded to stress a little about the state of his apartment and the emptiness of his kitchen, though he knew Hunk would take care of that upon arrival. There’s no way Keith’s plea to “just bring something small” actually registered with Hunk. 

Sure enough, Hunk arrived 2 hours early with heavy armloads of food and the assurance that Lance was bringing the rest later. Although his early arrival was a surprise, Keith found it was a welcome one. He cut his last-minute furious cleaning short to follow Hunk around the kitchen and direct him to various pots and utensils. 

Hunk carried on like he was feeding the entire air force, not 1 active member, 2 retired members, an engineer, and an analyst. 

“I’m glad you’re letting Pidge come to this, she’s been hounding me about never seeing you anymore. She misses you.”

“I’ve missed her too, I wasn’t sure if I should now that she’s Lance’s plus one, ya know?”

“Why? She hasn’t changed, even if we do have to question her taste in men,” Hunk asked over his shoulder, placing some complicated looking cheese dip into the oven.

Keith hesitated, trying to find a way to say what he wanted without making it weird. “It’s weird sometimes. It’s like this whole other life happened while I was gone that I have to get used to. It’s just… change, you know?” Keith shrugged and turned away, stirring a spoon through some concoction Hunk had set aside. Shiro would get it. “I’m just still easing myself back in, I guess. That’s why I didn’t invite Shay.”

“Hey, no, I get it. And Shay gets it. You wanted some time with the Furious Four again. And Shiro.”

Keith groaned at the nickname. Curse Lance for coming up with it, god he hoped that wasn’t going to be a thing today. Lance could be quite cliquey when he got on about the “Furious Four” and Keith really wanted Shiro to feel part of the group.

“Don’t worry about it,” Hunk reassured him when he said as much, “Lance knows you want this to be a chill, fun night. And I think Pidge already knows Shiro too, so really he’ll only be meeting Lance.”

“Yeah. Good.” 

A loud banging at Keith’s door proceeded Lance’s arrival by about 5 seconds. The door flew open and Lance swooped in, arms overladen with bags and containers and what looked like an entire cake pan.

“Hunk, my man, you’ve done it again, and I’m calling dibs on all of the leftovers. Especially whatever this thing is.” He stomped over to the kitchen and dropped his bundles dramatically, with Pidge trailing quietly behind him, head in her hand. “I might not let anyone eat this, actually. I kind of want it all for myself. Keith!” Lance turned on his heel, arms raised to the ceiling before he pulled Keith into a quick but crushing hug, “Do you have a marker or something so I can claim this baby for myself?” 

He stroked the tinfoil top of the cake pan like it was his lover, which made everyone roll their eyes. 

“No.” Keith said curtly. He turned away from Lance, who began immediately bickering with Hunk over his right to claim all the food for himself, and met Pidge’s calm, curious eyes.   
“Hey, Pidge.”

“Hey Keith.” She inspected him for a moment, then stepped forward to wrap her small arms around his waist. She only reached his chest. It was a strange comfort to hold something so small against him, Keith felt a few more of his nerves about the night slip away under her embrace.

Shiro knocked on the door at 5 pm exactly, the time Keith had asked them all to arrive. He held a fair-sized blue cooler in his hands that he had to swing in front of him in order to squeeze himself through the door. 

“Hi, Shiro,” Keith greeted in a soft but happy voice. He tried to take the cooler from him, but Shiro shrugged him off. “I said you only had to bring something small.”   
Keith eyed the piles of food that were already overflowing from his kitchen.

“Don’t worry, I brought drinks.” Shiro grunted as he placed the cooler down at the foot of the island were it would be out of the way. “People tend to forget about the drinks when there’s no booze at the party.”

Keith realized with a start that Shiro was right, they had all completely forgot about non-alcoholic drinks. All Keith had in his fridge was some soy milk and filtered water that had been sitting there for probably 3 months. A quick look around told him that everyone had already made do with glasses of tap water.

“Thanks, Shiro,” Keith said gratefully, helping him open the cooler and pull out cans of pop and juice to pass around.

“Shiro!” Pidge greeted, moving awkwardly around Keith’s bent form to tap at Shiro’s shoulder. 

“Katie? I didn’t know you’d be here! You know Keith?”

“Sure, he’s part of the Furious Four,” she explained happily, pulling Shiro into a hug. 

Keith was less than thrilled to learn Shiro knew exactly what the Furious Four meant.

“And I’m dating this goof,” Pidge gestured over to Lance with her thumb, who automatically turned with his best goof-grin to wave at the legendary pilot Shirogane himself. 

“Ahh,” Shiro said, like that explained everything. A moment later, however, he pulled her to the side and asked in a low voice, “I thought Keith’s friend dated someone named Pidge?”

Keith only just contained his laugh and moved away while Pidge explained how her old childhood nickname had caught its second life with the Four. 

After that they had to introduce Shiro properly to Lance; it could have gone smoother but it could also have definitely gone worse.

Lance was debilitatingly star-struck when he finally found himself face to face with the hero pilot of his dreams, and Shiro had somehow psyched himself into some sort of protective brother-figure on Pidge’s behalf, which ended with many bad jokes falling lifeless at Shiro’s feet until Hunk and Pidge dove in with enough distractions to get the night back on track. 

Keith, for the most part, sat back and watched as his friends all interacted with each other. He listened to several conversations at once, often nodding along but rarely adding any input. The antics, when all of them were in a room together like this, could sometimes get out of hand, even without any alcohol to spur them on, but tonight they were all just the right amount of wild. 

Shiro entered their group almost seamlessly, which made a bright bubble of hope spring up in Keith’s gut; hope for his future, for here, all around him, was his support structure. Yes, there were maybe a few missing from the table, his mom and her new husband, and Dr Allura, his therapist, to name a few, but those were his secondary supports, his safety nets. They were distant, either from office hours or from literal physical distance, and though they had all pledged to be at his beck and call, Keith knew it was these people around him now that he would rely on first and foremost. 

“Hey,” Shiro’s kind voice pulled Keith from his reverie, “you ok? You seem a little distant.”

Keith shook his head, lips curved in a hint of a smile. “I’m fine, just soaking it all in. I’m glad you’re all here.”

Though he said it quietly to Shiro, Lance’s sharp ears picked it up and he turned to with his lips puckered, ready to blow kisses. “Aww, we wuv you twoo, Keef,” he said in a horrendous baby talk that made everyone at the table groan.

“Ugh, I just ate, Lance!” Keith admonished, throwing a crumpled napkin across the table.

“Yeah, dude. Why would you do that? You know my stomach’s delicate.” Though they all knew it was an act, Hunk did an excellent job of looking green and queasy.

As the night drew on they all slowly wandered off. First Lance and Pidge left to catch a late-night showing of some god-awful 1970s horror film, then Hunk left in search of the comfort of Shay’s apartment. Shiro stayed for a long while after the others had left, sipping at a tea and quietly conversing late into the night.

“Well, Keith, how do you think tonight went?” Shiro asked at long last, idly turning his tea cup in his hands. 

Keith stretched out in his seat and lifted his feet to the chair Hunk had sat in just a few hours before.

“Honestly? I think it went great. This was just what I needed, a little slice of normalcy with the guys. And Pidge,” he amended belatedly, remembering that Shiro knew her as ‘Katie.’ He probably didn’t consider her as one of the guys the way Keith did.

“That’s good. I was a little worried when you were being so quiet for a while there. I thought it might have been too overwhelming.”

“Hmm? No, I’m usually pretty quiet. That’s why I get along with these guys, they don’t usually need me to say much.”

“Really?” Shiro sounded genuinely surprised at that, “you’ve always been talkative with me.”

Keith turned to Shiro with his own surprise then. He thought about it for a moment. “Huh, I guess I have. But then, you’ve always been easy to talk to. It’s like we’re both coming from the same place or something.”

Keith hummed at the idea, staring off at the far wall as he considered the matter further and completely missing the slow-growing blush that painted its way across Shiro’s cheeks. When Shiro cleared his throat and started his farewells a few moments later, the blush was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Tell you guys a secret? I think Shiro's developing a bit of a crush on Keith!
> 
> I love reading your guys' comments! I make an ungodly bird-noise every time I get an email saying that's a new one, ha ha!
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr or Twitter if you like to stay updated on stories I post. Honestly, I'm on twitter more these days because tumblr won't even let me see my own stuff because it's marked 18+ and I'm too lazy to look into how to fix it, lol.  
> Tumblr: WatermelonTuesdays  
> Twitter: @WTuesdays


	3. Roadside Assistance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith gets a call and runs to Shiro's aid.

It was some months after Keith’s dinner party, one evening well into winter, when Keith got his first panicked phone call from Shiro.

“Hey Shiro, what’s up?” Keith asked easily, cradling his phone over his shoulder as he scrubbed his dishes. 

“Keith!” The tone in Shiro’s voice was strained and oddly high-pitched and Keith found himself immediately straightening his posture, dishes already forgotten. “Do you think you’re ok to drive? I kind of need a pick up. Or, maybe you could get Hunk?”

“I can drive. Where are you? I’m coming now.” He had just enough forethought to pull the rubber gloves from his hands before he was swinging a scarf around his neck and throwing on his boots.

“I’m at the convenience store just past the gym.”

“The one off Aberdeen?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok, I’m coming. Do you want to stay on the line? What happened?” The thundering of Keith’s feet as he flew down the building’s stairs echoed across the phone to Shiro.

“I was at the gym, and I saw an old – friend – and we got talking and I didn’t realize how late it was. And when I got to my car, it was already dark. I thought it would be fine, but it’s kind of raining, and the lights with the rain… I, uh, pulled over right away at the convenience store…”

“That’s good, Shiro. Hey, I’m glad you’re safe. Are you still in your car now?”

“No, no I’m in the store. The man here’s waiting for me to close up, but he said I can leave my car here overnight. They won’t tow me.”

“That’s good. That’s really good. I’m not far away now, just maybe 10 more minutes.”

Keith heard Shiro relay that to the store owner, and heard a garbled reply that made Shiro say “heh, ya, he really is.” Meanwhile, Keith did his best to find the sweet spot between rushing and speeding. 

He pulled up at the door of the convenience store and watched as Shiro waved his goodbye to the owner and climbed into the passenger seat, pulling two large bags of snacks onto his lap.

“What’re those?” Keith asked, waiting for Shiro to buckle himself in before starting to move.

“Snacks. I felt bad since he was staying open for me. Look, he gave me the day-old donuts for free.” Shiro held up a case of powdered donuts for Keith to see before dropping it back down into the bag.

Keith kept his foot on the brake even though the car was still in park and turned to properly look at his friend.

“Hey,” he said softly, voice serious, “how are you doing?”

“I’m better. The lights in the shop helped. I think it was more the surprise of how dark it got more than anything. If I’m prepared I can usually drive at night now.”

Keith didn’t know everything that had happened to Shiro in his year away, he didn’t like to talk about it, even now, but he knew about Shiro’s crash. Landing at night, on the water, with blinking lights in the distance and the reflection of burning wreckage on the waves was a memory he relived time and again. 

“I know.” Keith reached across the console to put his hand over Shiro’s, making the plastic bags crinkle loudly from the movement. “I’m glad you called me, and that you pulled over right away.”

“Yeah, me too.” Shiro looked a little like a scolded child, with his head bent down over his lap in the darkness, but Keith could hear the ghost of a smile in his voice that meant Shiro did know that he’d made the right call.

“Is it ok to drive now?”

“Yes. Please.”

Keith took off slowly, driving calm and careful, with his hands at 10 and 2, and checking the mirror often. Even so, he could feel Shiro tense every time they met another car going the other way; even the stop lights and blinking signs of the shopping district seemed to put him on edge.

“Hey, did you want to look at me instead?” Keith offered. He’d driven at night with Shiro before without a problem, usually Shiro was fine if he wasn’t the one driving, but tonight it was a struggle to remain calm.

Shiro sighed and turned to stare at Keith, inspecting his face in profile in the darkness.

“Better?” Keith did his best not to feel self-conscious under Shiro’s steady gaze.

“Yeah, actually.”

Perfect. Though, it would be even better if Keith could get him talking.

“So, who did you run into at the gym?”

“Oh… uh, my ex, actually.” Shiro rubbed at the side of his face to block out the glare from the next car and studied the curve of Keith’s nose.

“Curtis?” 

“No. Adam; he was before Curtis. Before everything, actually. We were high school sweethearts, turned college sweethearts. Everyone thought we were going to get married. But then I joined the air force and…” Keith waited patiently through Shiro’s long pause, though he already knew where the story was going, “it was too much for him. He made it through 2 tours and he left when I was called for my 3rd one.”

“That’s…” Keith didn’t know what to say, “rough, buddy.”

Shiro snorted a brief laugh that smacked largely of cynicism, “Yeah, well… not so Earth-shattering in retrospect.”

Keith held his tongue. This was a new side of Shiro he was seeing, one he’d heard about in Shiro’s stories and at their meetings, but one he had yet to see in person. 

Silence stretched between them long enough that Keith began to search for new topics, but that turned out to be unnecessary.

“Still sucks, though,” Shiro admitted quietly. “It hurt a lot when he left. And not just that he left, but that he left because he couldn’t understand that part of me. He didn’t get how important the mission is. He didn’t understand how flying made me feel.” Shiro’s voice dropped to a reverent whisper at that and Keith found himself nodding along.

“I get it.” He shifted his hands on the steering wheel, bracing himself to say something important. “As much as I know I can’t go back anymore, as much as I don’t even want to go back to that life, some days it just hits me that I’m never going to fly again, I’m never going to feel like that again, and I get so mad. I hate myself for being so weak sometimes, and I just want to get in my jet and take off again. It doesn’t matter where.” Keith rolled to a stop at a red light, feeling awkward from his admission even though it was hardly the first time he had opened up so much of himself to Shiro. “You know?” he asked hesitantly. 

He glanced quickly over at Shiro then turned for a longer look. Shiro was looking at Keith with an expression Keith’s couldn’t read in the heavy shadows of the street lights.

“Shiro?” 

The use of his name knocked him out of his strange trance, and he blinked at Keith in wonder. 

“You still with me?” Keith asked.

Behind them a car honked their horn and Keith snapped this attention back to the road and the now-green light before them. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here, Keith. Sorry, that’s just. Whoa, it was like you had read my mind for a minute there. It, uh, it kinda threw me for a loop.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Keith nodded. “People don’t get it – what it’s like. Even Lance sometimes, ya know? Like, he flies, and he does a good job, but he always acts like he could give it up any day, and it wouldn’t make any difference.”

“It just gets into your veins, like adrenaline, only sweeter. But they don’t feel it.”

Keith smiled, casting another quick glance at Shiro before turning into his parking lot. “They really don’t.”

Keith didn’t even ask if he should follow Shiro up to his apartment, he just locked his car, pulled one of the bags of snacks from Shiro’s grip, and followed him to the stairs.

“You can take the elevator,” Shiro offered, “it’s fifth floor. Usually I take it, but…” He let the sentence fade out into nothing and Keith didn’t bother to pick it up. He just shrugged and reached to hold the door for Shiro.

“I don’t mind stairs.”

In Shiro’s apartment, Keith settled himself on the couch like he had no where else to be, and he craned his neck to look around at Shiro’s apartment. It was a one-bedroom, like Keith’s, only with more space, and with the tv in the living room. 

Shiro watched in mute fascination as Keith settled himself in. A look of gratefulness, mixed with something a shade deeper and much more meaningful, passed his face. It faded a moment later as he shook his head and approached the couch, dropping his bags of goodies on Keith’s lap.

They stayed up late into the night, talking and watching movies, both of them curled up with their feet on the couch, toes pointed to each other, and a battlefield of snacks and wrappers strewn between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I SWEAR cuddles are coming! When I wrote this it felt like that's literally all these boys do, but now that I'm posting it section by section it is taking FOREVER. Next chapter they start the platonic cuddling. I promise it's soon.
> 
> I very nearly didn't post this update because I posted yesterday for Shiro's birthday, but in end I couldn't be that mean! 
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> If you liked it, you should drop a kudos or tell me how pretty I am in the comments (or, you know, say something about this chapter, or whatever...).
> 
> I deleted my old tumblr and created a new one with the same name that looks pretty well identical. So, if you're one of the 4 people who followed me originally, you'll have to follow me again for fic updates. =D
> 
> Twitter: @WTuesdays  
> Tumblr: WatermelonTuesdays


	4. The Market

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Hunk go to the morning market and Hunk gets a little nosy. Later, they meet up with Shiro, and Keith and Shiro split off and grow a little closer.
> 
> \-----  
> “So, Keith…” Hunk asked in his best nonchalant tone, pawing over a basket of potatoes, “you dating anyone lately? Or, I don’t know, thinking of dating anyone lately?”
> 
> “Huh? Where is this coming from?”
> 
> “Oh, I don’t know. You’ve been back for a while, and things seem to be going pretty well for you lately. You know. You’re a good looking guy, and thought you might have, I don’t know, met another good looking guy.” Hunk balked at Keith’s blank look, but soldiered on. “You know… be good looking guys together? No?”
> 
> Keith shrugged. “Not really. I haven’t really thought about it, I’ve been so focused on myself. I don’t know if I have the space to think about anyone else.”
> 
> “You still think about us,” he paused significantly, “and Shiro.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to post this until Friday, but my brain took a sharp turn into the pit of misery and I figured posting this would cheer me up. =)

Keith went through a rough patch in early spring. A week and a half of bad days, almost daily calls to his mother, and check ins with Shiro every few hours. Everything had seemed to pile up at once and for a time he felt buried under the weight of it all.

But Keith had heard all the stories and he knew from his own experiences, that everything would pass. He took it in stride, speaking honestly to his friends about how he was feeling, and putting in time for himself to process and get through the days.

At the end of it all, Keith was almost proud of how he had managed himself. It hadn’t been perfect, but he had kept himself grounded, kept himself from spiraling out of control, and that was more than he could have hoped for even a few months ago.

As part of his celebration, he invited himself to Hunk’s weekly market trip, knowing that fresh air, good food, kind strangers, and time with his friend would all do him a world of good. 

They went early, before the crowds set in in earnest to trigger Keith’s antisocial reflexes. The day was beyond perfect for the excursion. The sun was high and the temperatures were above average for early spring. The breeze was warm and filled with an ever-changing variety of delicious smells that kept Keith’s mouth watered the entire time. 

They stopped at every stall, staying longer at the ones that sold fresh meat and produce so that Hunk could thoroughly inspect it all.

“So, Keith…” Hunk asked in his best nonchalant tone, pawing over a basket of potatoes, “you dating anyone lately? Or, I don’t know, thinking of dating anyone lately?”

“Huh? Where is this coming from?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You’ve been back for a while, and things seem to be going pretty well for you lately. You know. You’re a good looking guy, and thought you might have, I don’t know, met another good looking guy.” Hunk balked at Keith’s blank look, but soldiered on. “You know… be good looking guys together? No?”

Keith shrugged. “Not really. I haven’t really thought about it, I’ve been so focused on myself. I don’t know if I have the space to think about anyone else.”

“You still think about us,” he paused significantly, “and Shiro.”

“Pft, ya, but you guys are my friends. And Shiro’s my… we support each other. But I’m not thinking about that yet.” The significance of Hunk’s pause flew straight over his head.

“Ok… ok… and, uh, when you do think about it?”

Keith shrugged again. “I don’t know, then I’ll think about it then, I guess. What’s this about, Hunk?” The questions seemed a little pointed for just idle curiosity.

“Nothing! Nothing. I was just curious. You know, Shay mentioned you’ve been single for a while now, and I just wondered… you know.”

Keith groaned loudly as a thought occurred to him. “She’s not trying to set me up on another blind date, is she? I’m not doing that again, Hunk. I won’t.”

“No!” Hunk said a little too loud. Keith’s eyes narrowed.

He stuck his heels in the dirt, put his hands on his hips, and stretched to his full height. It still wasn’t close to Hunk’s imposing 6 feet, but Keith didn’t need height to be intimidating as all get out.

“He-hey! Shiro!” Hunk called, looking over Keith’s shoulder nervously and waving frantically.

“That’s not going to work,” Keith began to say, though his next words dropped off when he turned to see that Shiro was actually walking towards them. “Oh. Hey Shiro.” 

“Hey guys,” Shiro greeted amicably. “Keith, it’s good to see you out and about.”

“Yeah,” Keith agreed, turning more to face Shiro and failing to notice how Hunk slowly backed away towards the next produce stand. “What are you up to?”

At first glace Keith would assume Shiro was shopping; he had a basket laden with carrots and parcels that he carried in the crook of his arm. But on deeper inspection, it looked like he was out for a jog; he was wearing jogging pants and light layers that he had shed and wrapped around his waist. His look was complete with sweatbands that held his phone and trailed earbuds up to one ear.

“I was out for a jog, since it’s so nice out, but then I passed the market and, well…” he nudged the basket close to Keith and lifted some carrots to reveal a treasure trove beneath, “… cheesecake.” He shrugged like he had had no control over the purchase, which made Keith laugh. 

“Did you bring the basket with you?”

“Uhhh…. Yeah,” Shiro admitted sheepishly, a hand scratching idly at his nose.

“Then it’s not so much an accident than it is a planned trip?”

“Maybe.” There’s a slight pout to Shiro lips that made Keith laugh again, drawing Hunk’s attention back to the two of them.

“What’s so funny?” Hunk reached for the bags around Keith’s arm and added some beets to his bag of potatoes.

“Mr. Health-Nut here is a junk food addict.”

“Shiro!” Hunk pretended to be aghast, like he wasn’t the entire reason Shiro was addicted to baked goods. Shiro protested as they began to wander together through the long aisles, but eventually he had to admit defeat. He had a sweet tooth now, and there was no going back.

“I’m proud of you, Shiro,” Hunk said with false sincerity, “admitting that you have a problem is the first step towards healing.”

Keith snorted at that, “Like you’re one to talk. If anything, you’re his dealer.”

The crowds started earlier than usual thanks to the beautiful weather, so Keith decided to leave before Hunk was finished looking. They all walked together back to the parking lot so that Hunk and Keith could drop off Hunk’s load of purchases before Hunk bravely headed back into the crowds. 

Shiro lived close enough to the market to jog, but Keith offered him a ride home just the same. Shiro readily agreed and slid himself into the passenger seat. 

They didn’t get far before Shiro was struck by sudden inspiration. He turned to Keith quickly, with palpable excitement, his arms thrown wide and his smile beaming. “Keith, do you have anywhere to be today?”

Keith smiled at Shiro’s excitement, feeling it radiate from Shiro to run up his side. “Nope.”

“Turn left here.”

Shiro directed Keith for the next 20 minutes, his smirk never leaving his face, and his enthusiasm never waning. He refused to tell Keith where they were going, he would not even deign to respond to Keith’s guesses. 

When they finally stopped they had pulled into a dirt parking lot, under the shade of a old, giant sign whose message had long-since faded.

“Where are we?” Keith asked. The parking lot was secluded, at least 5 minutes drive from any houses, and surrounded by tall, thick trees. It was the kind of place a serial killer might take an unsuspecting victim.

Or a place someone might take a date, Keith’s mind supplied. He was promptly surprised by the train of his own thoughts, but it rolled off his mind like water off a duck.

“No, seriously, Shiro, where are we?”

Shiro just continued to smile. He got out of the car and pulled his basket out of the back seat. “Come on,” he urged, nodding his head over to a gravel trail that headed directly into the woods around them.

Keith followed Shiro through the trees along the cleared path. It was just a short trek before they left the trees behind them and found themselves on the back side of a rolling green hill. 

Keith laughed brightly and threw open his arms to catch the warm spring breeze. The sky was clear and bright above them, the air was fresh and smelled of damp earth and new growth. The grass at their feet was a happy shade of bright green that matched the new buds on the surrounding trees. 

“I thought you’d like it,” Shiro said, leading Keith off the trail to wander up the hill at their own pace. 

“I do,” Keith agreed. His cheeks felt stretched and tired already from the smiling, but he couldn’t stop himself. 

They crested the hill to see a wide expanse of fields knit together by winding gravel paths and accented with trees, benches, and heavy metal trash cans.

“Is this Arus Park?”

“Ya,” Shiro finally admitted. “We came in the back way, where it connects with the mountain trail.”

They walked along the ridge of the hill for a ways. The rest of the park was full of people, everyone out enjoying the first warm Saturday of the year. 

“Want to sit down on the other side?” Shiro gestured back to where they had come.

“Yeah.” That side only had one other couple and they were easily avoided. 

They found a spot along the curve of the hill where they could see the full open sky all around them and still feel like they were the only two in the park. 

Shiro stretched out along the grass, hands folded under his head as a pillow, and gazed up at the crystal blue sky. Keith sat with his arms hugged around his knees, watching the edge of the wood for the small birds that flew about in search of materials for their nests. He took a deep, centering breath and then another one. He could feel the kiss of the breeze along his skin, its trailing touch through his hair. The ground was spongy and comfortable, though he could feel the start of a damp patch on his jeans that would soon spread. 

This was the perfect time to take a moment to let go of himself and just let himself feel what was around him. Just live in the moment and appreciate it.

Keith didn’t notice his eyes had begun to tear until he felt his breath shake on his next deep inhale. He snapped back to himself quickly and looked down to Shiro with an almost guilty expression. But Shiro hadn’t noticed anything, he was lying with his eyes closed and a smile on his lips.

“Shiro?”

Shiro hummed to show he was awake.

“Thank you for bringing me here. And for everything. I really,” Keith inhaled sharply, but pressed on, “appreciate you and all you do for me.” He turned his head just enough to look back at Shiro and found Shiro’s slate-grey eyes locked on his own, like he was soaking in Keith’s emotions with a glance. “Especially your friendship. I’ve never had anyone get me like you do and it’s…” Keith heaved a deep breath, breaking eye contact to toss his head back, unable to handle the swelling of his emotions, “overwhelming.”

Keith chuckled lightly then, and wiped at his eyes. 

“Keith,” Shiro breathed, but Keith kept talking.

“I wish I’d known you a lot sooner, I wish I’d known you before I was this. But I’m so glad I know you now. And just… just… thank you.”

Tears began to fall in earnest then, and Keith burrowed his face down into his arms to hide them. It been a very long week.

“Hey,” Shiro said gently, pulling at Keith’s elbow with a gentle but insistent tug. 

He eased Keith down into the grass beside him and cradled his head on his arms, fingers padding through Keith’s long locks and tangling the ends by accident.

“Don’t be embarrassed, it’s ok to cry, Keith. I’m glad I met you too. I feel the same way, I’ve never met anyone like you before either.”

Keith’s tears tapered off soon enough, and he rolled back onto the grass like a starfish, only with one hand aimed down to rest so close alongside Shiro’s that they could almost hold hands. When he looked back over to Shiro he could see the evidence of Shiro’s own tears glittering in the morning sun.

He met Shiro’s smile with a shy one of his own then settled into their companionable silence. 

They stayed on their hill for the better part of the day, alternating chatting with silent contemplation. At some point, Shiro pulled the box of cheesecake from under the pile of carrots and the two men destroyed it with their fingers, their laughs echoing across the hills and mixing with the birdsong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THEY'RE STARTING TO CUDDLE!!! It's happening!
> 
> Legit, if all I ever wrote was boys cuddling and boys boning, I'd be SUCH a happy camper!
> 
> Don't forget to feed the writer with kudos and comments. 
> 
> You can follow me on twitter or tumblr.  
> Twitter: @WTuesdays  
> Tumblr: WatermelonTuesdays


	5. BEACH TRIP!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Lance's birthday so the friends all pack up and head for the beach where Keith finds fun, sun, and some surprising revelations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The gratuitous beach trip every Voltron AU needs.
> 
> Also, heads up. this chapter is pretty damn long. Sorry/you're welcome?

Lance’s birthday was at the end of July, which meant that the entire month was a bit of a struggle for Keith. Doubly so for Pidge.

Lance had very high expectations for his birthday, but he left the planning of his birthday to his friends, which was a cruel mistake. Hunk was appointed in charge of the food every year (because duh), and this year Pidge was in charge of the present, which left Keith in charge of the party itself. 

Of course, he was not just planning any old party: this party had to be perfect. It had to perfectly suit Lance (which in itself was a struggle for Keith), it had to be big, and there had to be some sort of activity. An element of surprise was a plus. An element of stalker-like obsession with Lance was a must. 

It was daunting, and exhausting; and it was made all the more daunting and exhausting by the amount of pressure Lance put on it to be _perfect_. Starting from June 18th (a month to the day before his birthday) Lance began to pester Keith about his birthday, about the plans, were they good enough, did Keith have it handled, did Keith need help, should Lance maybe just plan it all himself because there was no way Keith could come with anything even as remotely amazing as Lance could do himself? That was all day one, and it only got worse from there.

The only saving grace was that this year Keith had Shiro to rely on. 

Answering Shiro’s patient and methodical questioning of Lance’s likes, dislikes, and life history gave Keith the inspiration for Lance’s perfect party. Shiro helped get the supplies and coordinate the food with Hunk. And Shiro was the sounding board for all party ideas and decisions. 

Though Keith always made the final call, it felt incredibly good to be able to pass it all through Shiro first. 

Lance’s actual birthday was on a Tuesday, and it took a literal week of negotiations and outright begging for him to agree to hold the party till the following Saturday. In the end, Keith had to fork over nearly $200 for Lance to take Pidge on a whirlwind romantic date Tuesday night before he’d agree to the date change.

Shiro just smiled when Keith complained about it all.

“You really care about him,” he said one night, sitting placidly on Keith’s couch while Keith went over his extensive inventory list for the third time while complaining rabidly about Lance’s ego.

The remark stopped Keith in his tracks.

He looked, wide eyed, at Shiro for a moment before he cracked into a laugh that was only mildly hysterical. 

Shiro’s smile grew deeper. “You do.”

“I don’t.”

“You love him. He’s your best friend,” Shiro teased.

“I do not. He is not.”

“Whatever you say,” Shiro said mildly. His tone of voice made it clear he didn’t believe Keith for a moment.

“Hey.” Keith stomped over to Shiro, pointing a threatening finger in his face, leaning over the back of the chair to stare Shiro down, “You.” His voice was a rough growl. He held his expression dangerously serious for a long moment before he finally cracked into a smile of his own, “don’t you dare tell anyone.”

They both laughed, but Keith noticed as he stood back up that Shiro’s laugh had a ring of nervousness to it that was out of place for the mood. He turned back to look and noticed a creeping blush start to recede from Shiro’s cheeks and ears. 

Curious.

But then Keith shrugged it off and resumed his worrying over the impending party. 

They met at Hunk’s condo early on the morning of Lance’s party. They had to travel so they were taking two vehicles to get there: Shay’s SUV and Keith’s car. They filled both vehicles with massive amounts of supplies and were on the road to pick up Pidge and Lance before 8 am. 

Lance was in full diva mode from the moment Pidge opened the apartment building’s door to let him glide imperiously from the shadows. She lugged their heavy overnight bag, the one that she had packed herself to prevent Lance from spoiling any of his surprise.

Pidge’s brother, Matt, pulled up just as Lance strode between the two cars, waving graciously at his birthday admirers and likely winking through his dark shades. There was certainly plenty of finger guns going around. Matt lifted Pidge and Lance’s bags into Keith’s back seat before joining Shiro in Shay’s vehicle. Pidge slid into the back beside their bag and then Keith had to honk at Lance twice before he would deign to take his spot at Keith’s side.

“God you’re insufferable,” Keith groaned as Lance turned to him and waited for his birthday greeting. “Ugh. Fine, happy birthday, Lance.”

Lance grinned at Keith’s sulking, he liked it better than sincerity anyway. 

Pidge rubbed at Lance’s shoulders as they drove, and Keith did his best to ignore the dopey look on her face that said she was clearly enjoying herself.

It was weird to see her act like that. 

Officially, it was only because of Lance’s birthday; it was widely accepted in their friends group that Lance’s birthday was sacred, and they all kowtowed to the spoiled monster for that one day each year. The only real change now was that before they were dating Pidge would still have put on a show about not liking to touch Lance. She would have made faces for Keith’s amusement, and grumbled loudly about slave labour. Now things were different – she enjoyed getting her hands on her boyfriend, even in a non-sexual way. 

Or maybe, Keith realized around mile mark 60, she had always liked it and just pretended not to so she could keep things from being weird between them. 

He supposed that made sense, though it was a little hard for him to gauge. They had gotten together while Keith was still deep in the midst of recovery, and he had had no time or mental space to notice what was going on with his friends behind the curtains. He didn’t know things like who came onto who, or who liked the other first, or for how long. He couldn’t even say for sure when they had started dating. It felt like one day they were visiting him and Lance’s hand found Pidge’s and they stayed that way long enough for Keith to pick up that that was a thing now.

It was strange to think how much he had missed of his friend’s lives back then. It was hard not feel guilty or self-involved, but he told himself that it had been necessary.

You put your own oxygen mask on before you help anyone else. Patience yields focus, and over time focus yields understanding. 

“Uh, Keith? Shay’s taking that exit.” 

Lance’s voice interrupted Keith’s thoughts. He started in his seat and pulled quickly, though still smoothly, onto the exit ramp. 

“So, an overnight stay, huh?” Lance said, rubbing his hands together in excitement. “That’s a new one.” He cast a sly look over to Keith. “We going to be bunking up tonight?”

“What?” Keith asked, affronted, “why would we bunk together? You’re sleeping with Pidge.”

“Damn right I am!” Lance said with a quick kiss to Pidge’s wrist, completely undeterred by Keith’s clear disgust. “And I meant we like all of us. The whole group. You know, me and Pidge, Hunk and Shay,” his voice turned pointed as he continued, “you and Shiro.”

“And Matt,” Pidge added, as oblivious as Keith to Lance’s true meaning.

“Oh ya, Matt,” Lance repeated like he’d forgotten Matt was joining them.

“I’m pretty sure Matt and Shiro are bunking together. I’m taking a couch.”

Lance stared at Keith with pursed lips for a long while. “You’re a killjoy, you know that, mullet?”

Everyone in the car was expecting a certain reaction for that jibe, and Keith surprised them all (himself included) when he let out with a sharp, quick burst of laughter. “Ha! It’s been a while since you’ve called me that!”

Keith was so genuinely pleased about it, casting a flash of smile over to Lance, that Lance completely forgot his previous train of thought. 

They played car games for the rest of the drive.

Lance lost his mind when they finally turned off the old highway and onto a dirt path. It led them over short dunes until they reached a rocky, sandy outcrop to park their cars.

“No!” he cried. Then “NO!” even louder, pressing against the windows like a child and craning his neck to see over the edge of high grass that lined the sand.

He was out the door before Keith had pulled to a stop and he ran full tilt over the dunes until he tripped, rolling in the sand like a puppy. 

“The BEACH!” he yelled, loud enough that they could hear him from that distance, even with the surging sound of the waves.

He raced back to them a minute later and picked Pidge up into a swinging, laughing, off-kilter kiss that launched the shoe right off her foot. 

“Lance!” she laughed, beating at his shoulders but kissing him happily just the same.

He dropped her without warning a moment later and swooped over to Keith.

“Hey! No!” Keith cried, moving just fast enough to land Lance’s puckered lips against his cheek. He wasn’t fast enough to escape the crushing hug that lifted him from the ground and spun him in a neat circle. 

“Who else do I have to kiss?” Lance asked, wild with joy. He placed a second, purposely wet, kiss on Keith’s cheek before rounding on the others.

“Shiro helped plan a lot of this,” Keith offered, grinning at Shiro’s cry of betrayal when Lance picked him up too and bounced him up and down like he was trying to send him to the moon. 

Lance’s excitement could not be contained long enough for them to pull everything they’d packed out of the vehicles. He launched himself onto Hunk’s back, with a cry of “onwards!”

Hunk just shook his head, grabbed the towel and pair of swim trunks that Pidge offered him, and carried Lance out onto the sand at a trot, leaving the others to do the unpacking. 

“Woo hoo!” echoed after them.

“God I hope they don’t get charged with public indecency from getting changed on the beach,” Pidge said flatly.

Keith snorted, “I hope they do.”

The beach was relatively people-free considering it was a warm Saturday at the height of summer. They were down far enough from the more popular public beaches that Pidge had assured them they’d be fine. It only took a few trips to unload the beach gear and hike it to Lance’s chosen spot near a large rock. 

They set up the chairs and umbrellas, protecting the coolers under the shade and checking their ice supply. They worked to the happy refrain of Lance and Hunk cavorting in the waves. The water was cold enough to make Lance’s voice go comically high when it reached his hips, and he found plenty to scream about once he was fully submerged.   
With everyone helping they quickly settled in for their long day at the beach. 

Pidge was the first to bite the bullet and join the boys in the cold ocean spray, with Shay following timidly and Matt running off not long after that.

Keith lay on a towel in the sand, propped up on his elbows, surveying the surf like an off-duty life guard: at ease, but ready just in case.

“You’re not going in?” Shiro asked in that tone that meant he was checking in on how Keith was doing.

Keith shrugged. “Not yet. I like the sand while I’m still dry, it feels like home.”

“Right. You said you grew up in the desert?”

“Yup,” Keith popped the p at the end of his word. “Not a lot of places to swim, but we’ve sure got sand.”

He tilted his head and peered at Shiro over the edge of his sunglasses, looking for all the world like a model lifted off a summer centrefold. He didn’t notice how sharply Shiro looked away.

“Are you going in?”

Shiro’s pause said quite clearly that there was something building in Shiro’s mind; some worry or doubt starting to tug at him.

Keith waited.

“I, uh, haven’t been in the ocean… since….” He leaves that thought open-ended. “I think I’ll be ok. It’s bright out, and I’m surrounded by friends – I think it’ll be ok. I’m just… I haven’t tried it yet.”

Realization flashed through Keith like someone’d just taken a sledgehammer to his heart. 

Shiro had been struck down over water. He had nearly drowned before he was washed to safety. Lights reflecting, especially on water, triggered panic attacks, and he hadn’t tried stepping foot in the ocean since the accident.

And Keith had just taken him to a day-long beach party, complete with bonfire and overnight stay at the Holt’s cottage.

“Shiro, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think. You could’ve said –”

“No, Keith, it’s fine. I want to be here. And I think I’ll be ok. Really.” Grey eyes bore into blue, showing Keith the hard line of resolve in their depths. “And if I’m not, then I’ve got you and Matt here to talk me down.”

“You’ve got me,” Keith repeated, laying his hand on Shiro’s in the sand. “We don’t have to go in, but if you want to, I’m here. Whenever you’re ready.”

Shiro blushed, and nodded, and smiled.

“Thanks Keith.”

“Anytime.”

They lounged together in the sand until long past lunch, at times soaking in the sun, at times hiding in the shade of the umbrellas. The others returned and left again at their own whims, though Shay was their most constant companion.

“It’s very wet,” she said, in her gentle voice, like that was the worst thing she could say about something as large as the ocean. They had to agree. It was wet.

Eventually Shiro stood up, stretched, and offered a hand down to Keith.

“Ya?” Keith asked, taking the hand automatically and letting Shiro pull him to his feet.

“Yep.”

They walked together down to the surf and stopped just before the waves could touch their feet. In the water Pidge waved at them from atop Lance’s shoulders, while Lance and Matt cat-called out to them to join in.

Shiro looked at the water with a similar concentration to the time he took on the massive 20 lbs steak at the grill house just down the road from their trauma meetings. 

Wordlessly, Keith reached out and slipped his hand into Shiro’s, giving the warm flesh a slight squeeze.

Shiro’s eyes flew to Keith’s, face caught between surprise and gratitude.

“Together?”

Shiro nodded, and together they both stepped forwards into the cold water.

It was not so cold as Lance had made it out to be, but then, the man was from Cuba. 

The footing was awkward, there were hidden rocks beneath the shifting sand, and Keith and Shiro pulled each other one way and the other while they tried to keep balance. Once the water creeped past their knees they equaled out.

Shiro was taking deep, calm breaths as he moved, but his eyes stayed clear and focused. 

Keith froze when the water got high enough that their clasped hand dipped under the waves. “Shiro, is your arm going to be ok?” That hadn’t occurred to him either. Damn, he was really blowing the whole support thing today.

“What?”

“The water. Is it going to be ok in the water?”

“Oh,” Shiro shrugged, giving the metal a cursory glance, “it’s fine in the shower. And the pool. It should be ok.”

“Ok.”

Shiro smiled at Keith’s relief. “Come on.” He tugged Keith forward and they moved faster through the waves.

Though Shiro handled the water well, in fact he seemed completely unphased, he kept hold of Keith’s hands under the water until they were within easy speaking distance of their friends. 

The gang was camped out on the shallow end of a sand bar, and Keith and Shiro had to swim a bit to get to them, which was awkward to manage while holding hands but they made do.

Once they reached the others, not even Keith was able to tell that Shiro had ever been worried about the water. He played and roughhoused with the best of them, lifting Matt to his shoulders for a game of chicken, and launching Pidge up and over the waves so she could splash them all with a cannonball. 

He even snuck up on Hunk with a handful of seaweed to tickle at his back, making Hunk jump and cry out “jellyfish!” Hunk made a mad dash for Keith while Shiro burst into uncontrollable laughter.

He stood where he had been crouched behind Hunk, lit and shimmering in the summer sun, water dripping and gleaming down his chest. The force of his own laughter doubled him over and his eyes squeezed tight from mirth. 

That moment, Keith’s stomach decided to unexpectedly drop an inch or two. 

Shiro was gorgeous!

How had he missed that?

The man was an Adonis! No, better!

How had that escaped him?

He thought back quickly to his conversation with Hunk from months before. He had said he was too wrapped up in his own things to even think about anything like attraction and dating, and he had meant it; but he hadn’t realized how completely he had meant it. 

Keith’s new best friend was made out of all of his teenage wet dreams stitched together with kindness, compassion, intelligence, and just the worst (best) sense of humour. 

How had this happened?!

The laughter subsided and Shiro moved quietly to Keith’s side with a look in his eyes that said he’d noticed Keith’s sudden silence.

Shit, shit, be cool. 

Keith returned a shy smile that danced in his eyes and then turned to the others in an attempt to distract himself from a growing sense of awkwardness.

He froze stock-still when something wet, and cold, and unbearably slimy landed with a squelching noise on the top of his head. After a fraction of a second, his body caught up with what had happened and he jumped, screamed, and threw the offending substance off. 

Shiro burst into laughter a second time as Keith watched the same bundle of seaweed fly back into the water at the centre of their group.

“What the hell, Shiro!” he yelled, his gay panic forgotten for the time being. 

Though he tried to be the bigger person, Keith found himself resorting to playground rules: don’t get mad, get even. 

He waited until Shiro had hoisted Pidge high over his head to launch her back down in the waves, and then Keith grabbed the slimiest handful of seaweed he could find and dropped it down the back of Shiro’s swim trunks.

It was not Keith’s brightest move. 

Lifting Pidge had been the perfect distraction, but it was also hazardous. The moment the waistband of Shiro’s trunks snapped back down around the slimy, leafy monstrosity Shiro began to wobble and wiggle and waver. Keith had just enough forethought to jump out of the way before Pidge came crashing down to the water right where Keith had been standing. Her foot caught him solidly in the chest on her way down, making Keith cough and choke on air, but he didn’t complain because he figured he deserved that at least.

“Keith!” Shiro cried, dropping the fistful of seaweed to the water with a dangerous look in his eye.

“Ha! You’d better start running, Keith!” Lance bellowed.

For once, Keith took Lance’s advice. He turned and ran/swam from Shiro, heading for the nearest sandbar. 

Shiro tackled Keith down to his knees in the surf around the bar.

“Shiro!” Keith cried, panting. He was hardly able to breathe from laughing so hard as Shiro grabbed him bodily by the waist and twisted him around in the shallow water.

“See how you like this!” Shiro taunted, grabbing a handful of muddy, wet sand and drawing it down Keith’s back. It was somehow gritty and slimy at the same time, and oddly enough it was not a distasteful feeling, not like the seaweed. Still, the act had Keith trilling with laughter and shrieking with mirth.

Shiro scooped another and ran it down Keith’s arm. He dropped some I giant globs on Keith’s face and then rubbed more into his hair.

Keith was shaking with laughter, gasping for breath. He kept trying to squirm his way out of Shiro’s grasp only to find himself shifted from one side to the other each time, rolling in the waves.

“I gi- I gi- I GIVE, Shiro!” he laughed, feeling another streak of muck drag down his arm to replace the one an errant wave had just washed clean.

“What do you say?” Shiro asked through gritted teeth, still playing at being angry.

The clawing grip he had on Keith’s side to hold him in place tickled fiercely.

“Uncle. Uncle!” Keith cried.

Shiro released him at long last, and Keith remained down on his hands and knees in the sand for a long moment while he caught his breath. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Shiro turn and start returning to the others, who had drawn close to watch (and perhaps supervise) the shenanigans. 

Keith didn’t want to think about what the hell just happened. He didn’t want to think about how amazingly buoyant he now felt. Or how his skin felt alive with electricity. What he wanted was more. 

With a final, heavy pant, Keith pushed himself to his feet, pulling a large, dripping, double-fistful of sand with him. He ran with a warrior cry to Shiro’s turned back and flung himself to hang over Shiro’s shoulder. One hand smeared mud over his shoulder, the other rubbed it in a large circle over his chest. 

He pushed Shiro forward, into Lance’s waiting arms, and ran off back to the sandbar. The others joined him there and soon enough it was an all-out sand war. They avoided the thin strip of dry sand down the middle of the bar, and chased each other around with sopping globs of muck until they were all so out of breath they had to call a truce.

They trudged back up the beach some time later, happily exhausted, and eager to lay in the shade and sip at the cold drinks Hunk had prepared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me!
> 
> Lance is really living his Mariah Carey fantasy in this chapter. 
> 
> This chapter was a lot of fun to write. I really enjoy writing the boys just having fun, and I definitely drew of some of my childhood shenanigans for the mud fight. 
> 
> Stay tuned for next time, because we're not done with the beach! 
> 
> Also, thank you guys for the comments and kudos so far. I absolutely love them! One of these days I'm going to get in trouble at work for checking emails and reading my comments on the job (don't tell my boss! lol)


	6. Evening at the Beach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Beach Party continues well into the night. Afterwards, Keith does a little soul searching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we're taking some baby steps into a new kind of angst now. 
> 
> Romantic Angst *jazz hands*
> 
> Edit: Apparently I forgot to title this chapter the first time around lol

Once they had dried, they all reapplied generous amounts of sunscreen and lazed about even more while it soaked in. Due to an incident earlier in the morning, Lance was barred from applying sunscreen to Pidge’s back for the foreseeable future, so it fell to Keith to make sure she was suitably protected. 

Hunk passed around a light supper of wraps and pasta salad, and they all settled in together, draped over chairs, dog-piled in the sand, or stretched out over towels. 

Eventually Matt put some music on over his phone while the conversation drifted, split, and merged again amongst the group of friends. 

When he was dry again, Keith stretched out in the warm sand. His stomach was full, his endorphins were high, the music and cheerful conversations of his friends filled the air, and his head was beautifully blank for the first time in a while. Keith drifted seamlessly into a peaceful doze, surrounded by his favourite people in the world.

Keith awoke just in time to join a search party for dry driftwood. He, Hunk, and Shay went one way while the others went the opposite. 

They listened with mute amusement as Lance’s bragged loudly and repeatedly that their team would return with the largest pile of wood. Lance’s taunts followed them down the coastline and Keith rolled his eyes hard enough to hurt.

Not too far around the curve of the beach they found a thin stream set in a wide bank that trickled slowly into the ocean. It showed all the signs of weathering a yearly flood from the spring run off, when the melted snow would rush down from the nearby woods out to the ocean. 

The thing about these kinds of streams is that during high tide they make for a great deposit ground for all of the ocean’s cast-off refuse: mainly, old torn buoys and piles and piles of driftwood. 

Keith, Hunk, and Shay all shared the same malicious grin as they surveyed the outrageous pile of dry lumber, lying there for the taking. They made two trips each, arms laden with wood before Keith spotted it. 

The crowning glory. 

The undisputed pièce de résistance. 

The largest piece of driftwood that could physically be carried by two people. 

It took some work to get it dug out of the sand because it was the full lower half of an entire tree. It had been broken down until it was about 4 feet long, but it was nearly 3 feet in diameter, with a few thick roots twisting out at the bottom for leverage. 

Since he was shorter, it was easiest for Keith to lift a thick root to his shoulder and use one of the others as a grip to keep it lifted. Hunk circled his arm around the other end and they walked it carefully back to their woodpile.

They saw Lance and the others returning from their first trip with reasonable armloads of lumber; Keith and Hunk were unable to keep the wide grins from their faces. 

Even from a distance they could tell when Lance spotted them, and more notably, when he spotted their tree.

Lance shouted and dropped his armload of wood to race forward and gape at them. His tumbling pile of driftwood caused Shiro to shout and jump back out of the way, dropping his own pile in the confusion and starting a chain reaction that ended with Pidge flat on her ass and all their gathered wood scattered at their feet.

Lance’s mouth was wide as he raced up to them and watched them heave the massive tree to the sand beside their already sizable pile. 

“What the! How did…” Lance gaped even more when Shay appeared over Hunk’s shoulder, carrying her own bundle of massive logs. She had more than either Keith or Lance could carry on their own, and it made them both appreciate the kind of woman Hunk had scored. Shay was an uncontested sweetheart, but she was _strong_. 

“ _LANCE!_ ”

Shiro’s voice was sharp and brooked no argument. 

Lance grimaced at his friends and then trotted back to help Shiro and the others pick up their logs.

They lit the fire just before sundown and curled up in sweaters and blankets around the flames, anticipating the cool ocean breeze before it hit. Shiro sat with his back to the water, leaning back against the large tree which Lance turned into his birthday throne. They roasted marshmallows and hotdogs; Pidge sliced her hotdog in such a way that it made long legs that curled in the heat to look like a deranged spider. Once they saw the final product, everyone else had to make spider hotdogs too, until they eventually ran out.

“It’s so hard to be a trend setter,” Pidge despaired ironically when Hunk announced the last spider-dog.

Sometime during the festivities Hunk produced an acoustic guitar, and it was passed between Hunk, Matt, and Lance throughout the night. 

The drinks were passed around liberally (to everyone except for Shiro, Keith, and Shay, who was DD) but, amazingly, they didn’t get particularly wild or rambunctious. They had all burned up enough energy during the day to make them lethargic.

Not that they didn’t have fun. They told stories and laughed so hard Keith gave himself a stitch in his side. At one point Pidge nearly rolled into the fire from a bout of incurable giggles. Matt provided some highly questionable home-made sparklers that made large, coloured sparks and threatened to catch Shay’s blanket on fire. 

At one point, Lance shimmied down to the sand to squeeze between Keith and Shiro and throw his arms around their shoulders.

“I love you guys,” he said dreamily, “you’re the best. And Keith – Keef – my man, this was amazing. Best birthday I’ve ever had, and that’s including the time Angela Baptiste let me get to second base during 7 minutes in heaven.”

“Gross.”

“But seriously, this was an amazing surprise, and I love it so so much.” Lance turned to slap a wet kiss to Keith’s cheek, then turned and slapped an equally wet one on Shiro’s. “Serious though, I love you guys. You’re the best.”

Keith laughed and met Shiro’s eyes in the glow of the fire. He held the gaze just a fraction longer than normal.

“Time to get him to bed?” he asked, looking away.

Shiro nodded and together they stood and hauled Lance to his feet.

The group shoved their belongings back into the trunks with all the care they could muster at 1 in the morning, and headed to the Holt’s cottage. 

At the cottage they were shown their rooms, and where they could find the bathrooms, then everyone promptly split off for bed. Hunk and Shay took the master bedroom, Lance and Pidge took Pidge’s room, Shiro and Matt took Matt’s room, and Keith stretched himself out on the couch under the spare blankets Pidge had shoved unceremoniously into his arms.

The cottage had a tv, thank god, not that Keith expected any less from a place that boasted to have kept teen versions of Pidge and Matt occupied during summer vacations. It only got one channel, but that was enough for Keith. He turned it on and set the volume low enough that he could just hear it. 

Keith felt wide awake despite the late hour and the soothing glow and sounds coming from the tv. He didn’t even want to go to sleep, so he didn’t both fighting the restlessness that settled on his mind. Instead he harnessed it and used it to review the day.

It had been a very good day, all around. He had gotten lots of fun and exercise; he was well fed. He had spent more time with all of his favourite people than he had in months. He had felt the satisfaction of a party well-planned and revelled in the weight that lifted off his shoulders the moment Lance realized they were at the beach.

And he had unearthed some latent feelings towards his best friend.

Some strong ones, judging by the way his heart melted when he met Shiro’s eyes gleaming in the light of the fire. It was hard to believe he had developed an attraction to Shiro and harder to believe that he was only noticing now how incredibly handsome Shiro was.

The man was a wall. A tall, well-built, solid wall of a human being. And the way he had bared his scarred chest out in the light of day like it was nothing? Well, that spoke of a confidence that Keith found incredibly attractive. 

Keith felt like a man in a desert who was so excited to find an oasis he had forgotten about his thirst until he was already neck deep in the water. Today had been the first drop of water over a parched tongue and now Keith was thirsty. 

Looking past his thirst was difficult, but Keith shut his eyes and forced himself to do it – there was nothing he could do about it tonight so there was no point in making himself hot and bothered. Besides, what Keith felt for Shiro was beyond simple attraction, surely. Shiro was patient and kind, understanding in such a pointed way it sometimes felt like they had lived the same life. He was funny and smart, and he let Keith see sides of him that few others ever saw. 

Keith knew it was a privilege to be Shiro’s friend. He had known it from the day they had met, all those months ago, when Shiro had bared his soul to strangers then turned around and offered a lifeline to Keith in the form of a little white business card. 

He can’t imagine how far beyond privileged it would be to date the man. It would be…

Keith rolled over on the couch and told himself to get a grip. Wasn’t he going a little overboard with this? Yes, Shiro was his friend and had been his closest confidante for months, and yes, the man was inhumanly attractive, but maybe Keith was just getting his respect for his friend confused with romantic interest. It wouldn’t be the first time Keith had misread his own feelings, and it likely wouldn’t be the last. 

Shiro meant so much to Keith as a friend, and it was entirely possible this newfound attraction had blurred that line of friendship. Keith might wake up in a few months and laugh that he had ever thought of Shiro as more than a friend. Maybe the sun and the exercise had unlocked Keith’s libido and his brain had just imprinted on Shiro’s catastrophic good looks like a little baby duck. 

Definitely, Keith should calm down and stop overthinking this. He could lay here all night and think himself in and out of love with Shiro 20 times and never be any closer to real answers. The best thing to do would be to wait it out, see if his feelings grow, or change, or fade. 

Yes, that was exactly what he would do.

Shuffling footsteps pulled Keith out of his deep reverie and he was thankful for the distraction. He sat up and twisted along the couch to see who it was.

Shiro padded down the hallway into the living room, a pillow caught under his arm and a blanket dragging along the floor behind him.

“Hey,” Keith said softly, knowing Shiro had seen him move around in the glowing light of the tv.

“Hey. Matt’s a bit of a kicker, and I couldn’t sleep without my radio,” Shiro said by way of an explanation. “Mind if I join you?”

“Of course.”

Keith cast about the room. There was only a beat up chair to sit on, nothing Shiro could stretch out in. There was no way they could both fit on the couch, even if they laid feet-to-head it wouldn’t work.

“Uhh…” he said blankly, searching for an alternative.

Shiro just smiled good-naturedly and fanned his blanket out in front of the couch on the floor.

“Hey, Shiro, that’s not-”

“It’s fine, Keith. I’ve slept in worse places. And the blanket’s thick for a cushion.” Shiro laid down and then sighed dramatically as if to prove his point. 

Keith sniggered but gave no further protest. 

They didn’t talk for a long time, they just laid there listening to the television try and sell them something, probably knives. 

“Keith, are you still awake?”

“Yeah.”

“I… had a really great time today.”

Keith’s smile was audible in his quiet reply, “me too.”

“I’m glad you invited me. And… I wanted to thank you for today. You know, for going in the ocean with me. It really meant a lot. It was the nerves more than anything that got to me, but having you with me definitely helped.”

“I was happy to be there. But you could’ve said something earlier, you know. We could have done something else.” Keith leaned over the edge of the couch to look down at Shiro, his white hair glowing blue-green in the tv light.

“No, this was the perfect gift for Lance. Besides, I would’ve had fun even if I had to stay on the shore all day.”

They grew quiet for another moment.

“Plus, now I know. The water wasn’t bad at all, no problems whatsoever. I’ll have to start working on my beach bod.”

Keith’s laugh was more of a snort than anything else. “Yes, you’d be ashamed to be seen as you are now.”

“I am ashamed,” Shiro joked. “Maybe if I start hitting the gym more..?” 

They both laughed at the suggestion. They traded a few more jokes before they gradually turned quiet and settled down into sleep.

Keith’s last conscious thought was to reassure himself that he and Shiro were just friends. See how easily they had joked around? Friendship was all Keith needed.

And then he was asleep.

In the middle of the night, Keith half-awoke and tossed in his sleep, drawing one arm down over the edge of the couch as if reaching for Shiro, though he fell back to sleep before he could ever make contact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the comments and kudos. The comments always get me so hyped for posting new chapters.
> 
> MMMM, how 'bout that Hunk playing guitar? I wanted to dwell on that real bad, but this is not a Hunk thirst fic. Those are all still in progress, but I promise they exist.
> 
> I forgot how much I drew on my feelings about my ex from before we had ever dated when i was writing this chapter and some of the ones that are coming. That was a 'nice' surprise when it came time to edit. So, I hope some of Keith's confusion comes off genuine, cos it feels damn accurate to me lol.
> 
> Also, apparently I had my twitter name misspelled for like, months? That was a fun surprise! lol At least it's fixed now.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy!


	7. Lazy Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Shiro go through some highs and lows in the aftermath of the beach party, so the boys spend a lazy Sunday together. Cuddles ensue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Easter Weekend! I was supposed to post this last night, but my computer died in the middle of a Drag Race marathon with friends, so... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

A calm sort of contemplation fell over Keith the next morning as he drove Pidge and Lance back to the city. Pidge had claimed shotgun since it was no longer Lance’s official-unofficial birthday and she no longer needed to defer to his whims. Having Pidge up front made for a quieter drive which allowed Keith to sink himself deeper into his mood.

By the time they reached the city and he dropped Pidge and Lance off, that contemplation had turned into something akin to exhaustion. It sunk into Keith’s bones and made him lethargic and weary. He was ready for home, and he was more than ready to be away from people for a while.

He still had to drop off Hunk’s supplies that had made it into his car and retrieve his own from Shay’s trunk, so he followed behind Shay’s large SUV to Hunk’s condo. There, they split things as accurately and rapidly as they could. Hunk whispered into Shay’s hair about a nap as Keith threw the last of his things into the back of his car. 

“Thanks guys, it was a blast,” Hunk said, with a look that begged him and Shiro to please get off his property. Keith couldn’t agree more. 

He nodded, waved his goodbye, and settled into his car. He waited to let Shiro out of the parking lot first, taking his time to assess himself before turning out into the street.

The exhaustion was hitting him hard, and there was an edge to it that made Keith uncomfortable. He was glad to be alone in his car, away from people, but at the same time, the idea of his apartment, looming, empty, and waiting for him, made his skin crawl. He didn’t want to be alone, but at the same time that’s all he wanted. More accurately, he supposed, he wanted to be alone but not lonely. 

After having such a spectacularly good day yesterday, it made sense for his mood to drop to a low the next. Likely it would take a few days for him to even out. He would just have to wait it out.

Keith drove on autopilot while his brain raced ahead. He hoped he had food at home, because in all likelihood he wasn’t leaving for a few days. Right now he dreaded returning, but he knew the moment he was inside he’d be locked in for a good while to recuperate. He’d just have to crank his tv up loud enough to be heard in the whole apartment, then he’d be fine.

It wasn’t until he had turned down his own street that he realized he was still following Shiro’s taillights. 

Where was Shiro going? He lived in the opposite direction and had no reason to be on Keith’s street. 

Keith followed Shiro all the way into his parking lot, only losing him when Shiro turning into one of the guest spots.

Shiro met Keith at his trunk a moment later, trotting over like a golden retriever. 

“What are you doing here?” Despite his current mood Keith managed to sound intrigued.

Shiro looked bright and strangely refreshed for having just been trapped in a car for just as long as Keith. 

I thought I’d help you carry all this upstairs. You know, 4 hands are better than 2, and with this baby we’ve practically got 5.” Shiro patted his metal arm proudly. His joke fell a little flat; Keith couldn’t tell if it was because of his mood or if it was because it wasn’t funny. Still, he gave Shiro a tight-lipped smile, which was sufficient to keep Shiro’s mood up.

With Shiro’s help they managed to lug everything up to Keith’s apartment in 2 trips. Shiro entered the apartment first and his presence lit up the space with life in a way that Keith could never have accomplished alone. 

Once everything was shoved unceremoniously into Keith’s storage room, Keith and Shiro stood looking at each other in Keith’s kitchen for a long, awkward moment.

“Ehm,” Shiro cleared his throat, “Keith, uh… listen, would it be ok if I hung out here for a while? I know you’re tired but…” Shiro hesitated until he saw the relieved look in Keith’s eyes, “I’m still kind of wired. Like, it was so good to see everyone, and I had so much fun, and I just feel kinda like I’m bursting and if I go home now it’ll all turn inward. You know?”

“Not really,” Keith admitted. “I’m kind of the opposite right now, I’m drained - _but_ ” Keith added quickly, seeing Shiro’s face drop like a kick to the gut, “I don’t want to be alone right now either. I couldn’t stand people right now, but I don’t want to feel lonely either.”

“I guess it’s a good thing I’m not people, then,” Shiro tried for another joke.

This time Keith huffed out a vague laugh and rolled his eyes. 

“You’re not people, you’re Shiro. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

That settled, Keith shuffled around the room. He turned on some low music and grabbed his book from his nightstand and another one that Shiro had previously shown interest in reading. 

Though it was summer, Keith grabbed some thin fleece blankets from his closet and cranked up the air conditioning. He curled up on his couch with a pillow at his back and his feet tucked under him, feeling cozy.

Shiro settled at Keith’s side a minute later, trading the book Keith had grabbed him for a cup of tea. He pulled up a corner of the blanket and draped it over his lap, sitting close enough that the length of his thigh pressed again Keith’s shins. 

All Keith had to do was wiggle his toes and he’d press mischievously against Shiro’s butt. It would be a great way to tease him, but Keith resisted the urge. He sipped his tea, and opened his book, and enjoyed his sunny Sunday afternoon with Shiro.

It was nice that even when their issues weren’t identical, their methods were still the same. They were still able to help each other, even though Shiro had too much energy and Keith had not enough.

They had both evened out their moods by supper time and they fell into easy conversation over a lazy-made frozen pizza and left over salad. They still weren’t quite ready to say goodbye after the dishes were done, so Keith suggested a movie.

They moved into the bedroom with a surprising lack of awkwardness considering Keith’s revelation from the day before; though, this was far from the first time he and Shiro had watched movies in Keith’s bed. There had been a number of times where Keith’s panic attacks struck hard enough that Shiro had come running, usually still in his pajamas, to lay next to Keith until his breathing evened out. 

Shiro picked the movie, choosing a family comedy over any of the many action movies in Keith’s Netflix list. Keith didn’t question Shiro’s choice. At one time or another they had both been triggered by the sounds of explosions in movies, and today didn’t feel like the kind of day to risk it.

Keith sat with his back against the headboard to settle into the movie, but tonight he couldn’t get comfy. He was equal parts tired and restless. He didn’t want to sleep, but couldn’t get comfortable in any position that wasn’t laying down. He tried laying on his back, but he had to hold his head up at such a sharp angle his neck began to hurt within minutes. He tried moving to the foot of the bed and laying on his stomach with his chin held in his hands, but that began to ache soon after as well. 

“Having troubles?” Shiro asked, amusement evident in his voice. Unlike Keith, he had been sitting happily against the headboard the entire time. 

“Ugh,” Keith replied. He grabbed a pillow to prop himself up and immediately felt the tension in his neck travel down to his lower back. “I can’t get comfy.”

“You’re getting restless again,” Shiro pointed out.

Keith sighed, “I know.” His mood was going with it, too.

“I can go, if you want.”

“No, no, it’s not you. I like you here, I’m not ready for you to go yet, I don’t think.” Though it hadn’t occurred to him until he said it, Keith could feel the truth of his admission in his gut. Shiro’s presence had calmed him down earlier today, and now that he was getting antsy again it would do no good to send Shiro packing. He wanted Shiro here, at his side.

Keith tried to think back to earlier. He had calmed down as soon as he got home, but he only truly settled when he was curled up on the couch beside Shiro, feeling warm and reassured by just that small touch of their legs.

Shiro seemed to realize what Keith was missing at the same moment Keith did, and thank god he did because Keith was far too embarrassed to voice any kind of request for physical contact out loud.

“Here, lay this way,” Shiro instructed, waving his hands to show Keith to lay width-wise across the centre of the bed.

Keith complied, and laid on his side with an arm curled under his head as a pillow. The bed shook as Shiro moved into place behind him, pressing his chest lightly against Keith’s back and laying his metal arm over Keith’s side. 

They were angled away from each other in such a way that they did not touch from the waist down, and Keith wondered if that was an accident or on purpose: and if it was on purpose, was that because Shiro didn’t want them pressed together or because he did? 

Keith mentally berated himself for the thought. Shiro was being extremely thoughtful here, just like always, and he didn’t deserve Keith’s lecherous thoughts at a time like this. 

They were just friends, Keith told himself, just friends.

Shiro’s arm tightened around Keith’s torso just enough so that he was holding Keith against his chest.

Just friends…. But maybe they shouldn’t be?

Keith woke up with Shiro’s arm still wrapped around his side and Shiro’s drool pooling in his hair. He was cold despite the fact that he was still in his clothes, and he reached for his phone to adjust the air conditioning. He couldn’t find it and gave up looking almost immediately. 

He squinted against the light of the tv to see that Netflix was asking him if he was still watching. He swivelled around in Shiro’s arms to check the time.

2:46. 

Keith groaned loudly, then quickly apologized when he felt Shiro twist and rumble beside him, waking up.

“Time’zit?” Shiro asked, lifting his arm off Keith to rub at his eyes and look around the bedroom in confusion.

“Almost 3.”

“Ugh. Should go home…” 

“Don’t bother,” Keith dismissed. Sleep was still thick in his own brain and by the looks of it Shiro was even worse off. “You can’t drive this tired. Let’s just get into bed where it’s warm.”

Shiro hummed his enthusiasm for that idea, though he groaned when he pulled himself up into a sitting position.

Keith rolled from the bed and began to redistribute the pillows and pull back the blankets. He paused before crawling under the covers. He was still in his pants and shirt, and he didn’t care to sleep in either. 

He looked to Shiro, and then his bed, with the soft sheets that felt great against his bare chest, then back to Shiro.

It was 3 am.

Who cares about anything but comfort and sleep at 3 am?

Not Keith, that’s for sure. He quickly slipped off his pants and ripped the shirt over his head. When he looked up Shiro was doing the same thing and Keith didn’t blame him at all because Shiro had still been in jeans, and no one wants to sleep in jeans. Not even masochists. 

Keith snorted a laugh at that thought as he buried his head into his pillows.

“What’s funny?” Shiro asked, looking a little more wide eyed as he settled into his own pillows.

“Masochists,” Keith said sleepily.

“Ok,” Shiro laughed nervously. When it became clear that Keith wasn’t going to elaborate, Shiro asked, “Do you want me to put something back on?”

Keith made a noncommittal noise that Shiro took to mean yes. He put on a sitcom then dropped the remote somewhere in the covers. 

They lay facing each other, and each of them shuffled in the blankets, trying to get comfortable. They stopped when Keith’s forehead pressed lightly against Shiro’s chest and Shiro’s arm found its way around Keith’s back.

They were asleep within moments, so wrapped up in the sound of each other breathing they didn’t even hear the canned laughter of the sitcom playing in the background.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I hope you liked it. I know any time I successfully find an excuse to get these 2 boys cuddled together is a good day for me.
> 
> Keith is very much me in this chapter. I once went 20 minutes out of my way to pick up a friend and bring her to my house because I had shit to accomplish and couldn't handle being alone. Just "Hey, do you want to sit and watch movies on my couch while I organize all my files from the last 2 years?" and she's a trooper so she did. It's too bad she's not thicc like Shiro (or gay in any way shape or form) because she'd be my wife now if she were, lol.
> 
> Don't forget to tell me how pretty I am in the comments! Or, you know, something about my writing since none of y'all know my face. <3 <3


	8. Love or Friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith questions himself and his developing feelings for Shiro.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this a little later in the weekend because my wrist hurt so bad I didn't open my computer at all and lived my life as a leftie for 2 days.

That settled it; Keith was in love with Shiro.

At least, he thought he was. He was pretty sure. 

Like… 85 % sure. 98% on a good day. 

44% on the days when Shiro’s unbelievable friendship outshined all of his other amazing qualities and Keith convinced himself that he only loved Shiro as a friend – that he was only fooling himself because he wanted to love Shiro out of some kind of misplaced affection and hero worship.

It didn’t really matter that Keith had stopped hero worshipping Shiro the day they met in person, if he had ever done so in the first place. Could someone look up to and respect a hero without it being worship?

Was that really a question that mattered right now? No.

What mattered was that Shiro just told the _worst_ joke that should _not_ have been funny but Keith couldn’t stop laughing. The proud grin on Shiro’s face only made it worse: proud that he finally made a groaner so bad it was actually funny. 

Keith felt light as air as he laughed.

It was almost enough to convince himself that he was head-over-heels for Shiro. 

They were sitting in the back of the trauma survivors’ meeting room, waiting for everyone else to wander off so they could clean up the tables and set the room back to normal. Several months back, when the sign-up sheets for snack shift went around, Keith and Shiro had put their names down for all the same shifts and this was their first. They had spent the better part of the last two evenings locked away at Shiro’s apartment making breads and preparing trays. 

It seemed like it was a success: people were eating the food, and no one had immediately keeled over. Hunk had given them all the recipes they’d needed, and except for one cake that didn’t bake so much as turn into a heavy, sticky, black tar, it had all gone surprisingly well. That particular monstrosity was sitting at the bottom of the dumpster outside Shiro’s apartment, still in the pan.

Shiro and Keith made their own little world in the back corner of the meeting room, lost in their own inside jokes and the easy flow of conversation. They raised hands to each farewell they received from the others without even realizing they had done so. 

It was a complete surprise when Keith looked up some time later and discovered that they were the only 2 left in the room. He checked the time on his phone and was even more surprised to see that it was more than an hour past the end of the meeting.

“It’s past 9,” he said with a hint of awe in his voice. He looked to Shiro, “we’ve been talking here for over an hour.”

Shiro looked up and mirrored Keith’s surprise to see the room behind him was completely empty.

“Good thing there’s no one in after us, hey?”

They laughed then, and started to pack up all their leftovers, Keith grumbling half-heartedly that they’d be eating sweets for the next week.

“Is there a problem with that?” Shiro asked, shoving a slice of cherry bread into his mouth whole and grinning at Keith with bulging cheeks.

Keith pushed Shiro’s face away and rolled his eyes.

“You’re going to get fat,” he teased.

“Not possible,” Shiro said around his bread. He patted his gut as if Keith needed to be reminded of the muscles beneath his cotton button up. 

Keith rolled his eyes again and tilted away to hide his blush. 

“It’d take more than a few cookies to wreck this bod.” Shiro swung his shoulder to nudge against Keith. Keith stepped away, intent on throwing food back into their containers. 

“I get it,” he said, his voice turning sour as he tried to keep from saying or doing anything he would regret. Shiro’s confidence was painfully attractive.

“These abs of steel are more likely to rust.”

That stopped Keith. Stopped his hand mid-air, brownie pinched delicately between his fingers. Stopped his brain for 5 full seconds while he tried to comprehend Shiro’s joke.

Keith tried really hard to restrain the laugh that came out of him, but that just made him sound like a shaken bottle of pop trying not to explode. The laugh came out anyway; there was no stopping it.

He dropped the brownie and tried to turn back to Shiro but got caught by the need to double over.

“Tha-tha-ha ha ha, wa- s the _worst_ joke you-hoo- hoo ha ha, you’ve ever told!!” Keith tried to say more, but it was even less comprehensible. 

Shiro preened like it was high praise.

He got swept up in Keith’s laughter and soon he was doubled over as well, both of them clinging to the table while they shook and gasped for breath.

It was nearly 10 o’clock by the time they had cleaned and locked up. 

It was early fall now, that awkward time when it was hot as anything during the day and cool enough for frost during the night. Keith shivered as they walked to Shiro’s car, and Shiro put an obliging arm around his shoulders.

“I think it’s almost time for jackets again, Keith,” Shiro suggested. He ran his arm up and down along Keith’s arm to bring it some warmth, not knowing he stoked a deeper warmth with the same touch.

Keith shrugged as if he were unaffected by the touch or by Shiro’s gentle concern. 

“It was warm today. And I didn’t think we’d be here this late.”

“Still,” Shiro pressed him closer into his side, “you don’t want to catch a cold.”

Keith grunted noncommittally. Shiro’s warmth did _things _to his insides, and Keith knew if he said anything it would be too much.__

__He pulled away quickly from Shiro’s side when they reached the car so he could duck into the passenger seat._ _

__Shiro pulled into a guest parking spot at Keith’s building, but left his car idling. He didn’t say anything, but looked up at the building for a long moment._ _

__Keith just sat there, wondering what was on Shiro’s mind. Usually he dropped him off at the door after their meeting; parking should mean he was coming in with Keith, but Shiro was letting the car idle so clearly he didn’t intend to get out of the car._ _

__He didn’t have to wait long before Shiro spoke up._ _

__“I know we don’t usually hang out on weeknights. I just had such a good night, I don’t really want it to end.”_ _

__Keith nodded, he understood completely._ _

__“Did you want to come up for a bit?” Something in Keith’s gut clenched at the question. It made his voice come out strange: hopeful._ _

__“We both have work tomorrow.”_ _

__Keith shrugged, “you’d come running at 3 am on a weeknight if I called and you’d still make it to work on time. I think we can handle a late night hang.”_ _

__Calling it a ‘hang’ felt weird, and Keith cringed inwardly. He didn’t seem to be able to stop from making a fool of himself lately._ _

__Shiro laughed self-consciously. He turned off the car in lieu of an answer, then followed Keith up to his apartment._ _

__They didn’t know what they wanted to do when they got up there, and they half-heartedly bickered over activities until Shiro remembered a card game he wanted to teach Keith._ _

__They played it on Keith’s bed for no other reason than because that felt like the place to do it. They seemed to be spending more time in there since the summer. Movie nights were now so common between them that Keith, who hadn’t even owned a television prior to his accident, now considered himself a bit of a movie buff._ _

__They played cards past midnight, arguing whether or not the movie White House Down was more of a Die Hard movie than either of the last two movies in the franchise._ _

__When it was time to go, Keith saw Shiro to the door, and they both stood there awkwardly, Keith leaning against the door, Shiro leaning against the frame for another 5 minutes before Shiro finally shuffled off into the night._ _

__Keith was filled with a dull melancholy as he watched Shiro’s retreating back._ _

__He hadn’t wanted him to leave, had almost offered for him to stay the night just to be able to curl up under the covers with him and wake up under the heavy weight of his arm._ _

__God, he had it bad._ _

__But still there was that little niggling doubt in his brain that told Keith he was overreacting. It told him that they were still friends, and that that’s all Keith’s ever wanted anyway. It told him he was just confusing friendship and a crush, that just because they were both gay men it didn’t mean that feelings had to be romantic. It told him that he had just never had a friendship this strong before and he was misinterpreting his own desires._ _

__Keith had arguments for that little voice – tons of them – but they were no use. He just kept circling the issue over and over. There was no way to resolve it, and no end in sight._ _

__Keith slumped back to his bedroom, turned on his tv, and hoped sleep would come quickly._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter down!
> 
> I absolutely love Shiro's terrible sense of humour!! So does Keith, luckily. 
> 
> I just learned the difference between a button up and a button down shirt and it is comically basic! Button down has a little button to keep the collar _down_!!! WHO KNEW! * _The more you know_ *
> 
> This chapter makes me a little sad, Keith's struggle is very me. But there's some more happiness coming. Next chapter is Keith's birthday, and Shiro's got some surprises up his sleeve.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated! (And by appreciated I mean I eat, drink, and breathe comments and kudos all day long: they keep me alive.)


	9. The Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Keith's birthday and he'll cry if he wants to.

“Keith, you’re sulking.”

“I am not sulking.”

He definitely was sulking, it was clear from his tone of voice, to his crossed arms, to his pouted frown.

Lance tsked at his friend, boxing Keith into his chair with firm hands gripped on either armrest. 

“You are too, and I’ve had enough of it. This is _your_ birthday party. You can’t just sit and sulk.”

“This is _not_ my party.” Keith was vehement. “If this was my party it would not be here.”

Keith caught the concerned stares of Pidge and Hunk over Lance’s shoulders and he was sure Shiro’s must match theirs wherever he was.

“Come on, Keith, you always say you don’t care where we go. What does it matter?”

“That doesn’t mean I want to go bowling, Lance! BOWLING!” he nearly shouts for emphasis. His voice is a double edged sword, he knows; every lash he gives Lance and the others will cut himself, though he won’t feel his own wounds until much later, when he’s home and thinking back on the night’s events. He knows he should stop and calm down, but he can’t help himself.

Keith had had a bad feeling about his birthday party all day, but not even a growing sense of doom could have prepared him for the drop in his gut when Lance pulled into the bowlarama parking lot. Disappointment, anger, bitterness, and resentment had all sunk into his gut like hot lead the moment the car slid into a parking space.

Did they not know Keith?

Sure, he wasn’t big on birthdays, and yes, he did always say he didn’t care where he went. But never in a million years did he think they’d take him somewhere he wouldn’t step foot in any other day of the year. Hadn’t they learned that lesson the year they tried to take him to karaoke and he ended up punching the cake?

Keith glared across the room, refusing to look at Lance another second. He made himself count to 10 before he was sorely tempted to replace punching the cake with Lance’s face.

His anger paused briefly at the sight that was headed their way.

Shiro was coming towards him from the far side of the building, a smile on his face and a bounce in his step. He was wearing an outfit that Keith could not comprehend.

Tight black jeans and a tight white shirt, but all of it had been splattered with bright splashes of multicoloured paint. Even from a distance Keith could tell it was home-made splatter: there was no way a clothing designer had signed off on this mess.

Keith tore his eyes from the rippling display of the white fabric over taut muscles and turned back to Lance, remembering his anger at the last minute. He wasn’t quite fast enough for Lance to miss the whiplash display of emotions, he could tell by the delighted fire burning in Lance’s eyes.

Keith pushed Lance away harder than he meant to (and he had meant to shove him fairly hard.) Lance stumbled back, laughing even as he tried to sound offended.

“Hey! Watch it, Keith, don’t hurt the merchandise.”

Keith heard Hunk mumble to Pidge “I knew this was a bad idea,” and Keith snapped his mouth closed, gut twisting guiltily. He was being dramatic. His friends didn’t deserve that, even if they got his birthday so off the mark it physically hurt Keith to look at their surroundings. 

“Ok, guys! Everything’s ready!” Shiro announced, rubbing his hands together excitedly. He took a sweeping glance at the group and his expression dropped. “What’s wrong?”

It reminded Keith of a puppy with his ears down and tail drooped and he felt another twist of guilt in his gut.

“Keith’s just being a big baby,” Lance said easily, waving off the look of concern that crossed Shiro’s face. “Don’t worry about him. Where are we headed, big guy?” 

Lance stepped forward and put a hand to Shiro’s arm, squeezing it like he was testing meat in a supermarket. He turned then to look at Keith and wiggled his eyebrows at the clear jealousy scrawled across Keith’s face.

Keith’s glare returned with a vengeance. Lance patently ignored it.

“Come on, Furious Four! That includes you, Keith, my actually furious friend.” 

Lance physically hauled Keith to his feet and set him on a march behind the rest.

They followed Shiro’s paint-stained back past all the bowling lanes and up a set of stairs in the back. Keith’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, but he followed just the same.

“Come on, Keith,” Lance said in a low voice, hardly more than a whisper, as they turned up the stairs. “Have a bit of trust in us, ok?”

Keith sighed; he was weak to sincerity from Lance, and curiosity was starting to dull his anger. “I’ll try,” he offered in lieu of a promise.

They walked down another short hallway before Shiro held open a door and ushered them all inside.

It was a private room, with 4 bowling lanes and three circular tables laden with food and gifts and balloons. The walls were plainer than down in the main area, painted a uniform grey rather than being covered in large cartoon bowling pins. 

Just the act of walking into the room settled Keith’s nerves considerably, even more so when Shiro closed the door, shutting out the rest of the world.

“Ok, Keith! I need you over here.”

Shiro took Keith’s hands in his own and tugged him forward. Keith followed without question as Shiro pulled him into a corner and began to paw through a bag.

“Here. Put it on.”

He pressed a bright pink shirt into Keith’s hands, grinning like he’d just given him the crown jewels. 

Keith unfolded the gaudy material and held it up. It was covered in the same home-made paint splotches as Shiro’s, with some stars added for flavour. The back said ‘Birthday Boy’ in misshapen bubble letters with a picture of a crown underneath. It was very arts & crafts project, but the nervous/excited look Shiro gave him while awaiting a response made Keith’s heart melt.

“You made this?” he asked, though he didn’t need to.

Shiro nodded, still waiting for Keith’s assessment.

Keith had never in his life wanted to wear something like this, but he happily pulled his own black shirt over his head and slid the new one over his bare chest. 

Shiro looked a little punch-drunk when Keith looked up at him after inspecting the shirt on his chest. 

“It’s good,” Keith said simply. It was tight like Shiro’s, and it pricked a little along the back from the paint, but it otherwise performed its shirtly functions.

Shiro gave Keith a smile that made Keith want to praise the shirt more, but Shiro was turned away and bounding for the door before Keith could say another word.

Shiro stopped at the door with a hand hovered over the light switch.

“You guys ready?” he asked.

Pidge and Hunk called a happy “yes” in unison while Lance crowed and cheered and clapped his assent. Keith turned to them, standing around one of the other tables, their jackets all draped over the backs of the chairs. 

They were all wearing weird clothes. Not as weird as his and Shiro’s, mind you, but weird enough for them. Pidge was in a lime green Hawaiian shirt covered in yellow and white flowers, Hunk was in a loose fitting shirt striped in heavy lines of fluorescent orange and yellow, Lance was in a baby blue tank top that said “angel” across the chest in silver sequins.

“Keith?” Shiro asked. 

Keith did not understand what was happening.

He nodded to Shiro and Shiro flicked the first switch.

The room plunged into darkness. 

There was a ‘flick, flick, flick’ from the door and the room began to glow, first from black lights, then from a multicoloured party light, then from a laser show that lit the walls up with twinkling yellow lights that mimicked the night sky.

“Whoops,” Shiro said, and he flicked another switch. The party light turned off.

Suddenly the clothes made sense because everyone was glowing under the blacklights. Keith could see the bright pink of his shirt at the edge of his vision, and could see the bright colours of his friends in the corner of his eye, but his eyes and all of his attention were trained on Shiro.

Shiro glowed like a Greek god in his white shirt. The splashes of paint lit up like beacons for Keith’s attention, mapping Shiro from his broad shoulders all the way down to his feet. 

His white hair shone like the light in his soul and it glittered with the twinkling lights of the stars as he moved. Keith felt breathless when Shiro stepped close, and he was disappointed when Shiro just moved past to fiddle with a stereo set into the wall behind him.

The music that played was something directly off Keith’s favourite playlist. It was almost too much. This was almost too much. 

“Sh-Shiro… did you do all this?” 

Keith felt small from his anger just minutes before. He didn’t deserve his friends, especially not Shiro.

“Do you like it?” Shiro responded with his own question. “They said you wouldn’t like it.”

Despite his smile, Keith could detect an undercurrent of nerves in Shiro’s voice. 

Keith reached out to hold Shiro’s hand in his own.

“I didn’t think I would like it either, but I do. I really do.”

Shiro stepped closer, and for a moment he was the only thing in Keith’s universe.

“I wanted to give you the stars, but the planetarium was too expensive.”

As Shiro spoke, spots of light – stars – danced across the bridge of his nose, following the line of his scar.

“It’s perfect.” Keith hardly breathed the words, but Shiro heard them.

Keith’s breath stopped in his throat as he looked at Shiro, and he felt that intangible pull of attraction melting his bones. He wanted to tip forward and land in Shiro’s arms. He wanted to lean up and taste Shiro’s lips.

“ _Bowling_!!!!” Lance cried, slamming Keith out of his moment and back to the present. “I’m choosing everyone’s names!”

Shiro laughed at that and dragged Keith over to where the others were setting up the game. Lance gave everyone ridiculous names on the scoreboard; Keith’s was the tamest with a simple ‘Birthday Boi,’ Pidge was ‘Gremlin,’ Shiro’s was ‘Mr. Muscles,’ Hunk’s was ‘Hunk-meister 5000,’ and Lance’s was ‘Loverboy Lance.’ 

The moment he left the chair, Pidge changed his name to ‘Recently Single’ and they spent the rest of the night making a meal out of the joke that Pidge was leaving him for his philandering ways. 

The rest of the night was surprisingly perfect. Even the actual bowling wasn’t bad once Keith got used to it and his natural athleticism took over. 

“Not too bad for someone who’s never bowled before,” Hunk said sometime later when they were all settled around the tables and digging into the birthday cake.

“Never?” Shiro asked, eyebrows rocketing to his hairline.

Keith shrugged, “I never really wanted to, I guess.”

“Not even as a kid?”

Lance leaned over Keith to answer that one, “You see, Shiro, even as a small child our Keithy-boy here was a giant stick in the mud.”

Keith elbowed Lance in the side before he could continue.

Shiro frowned lightly at the statement and looked around the table at the others. “How long have you all known each other?”

Keith elbowed Lance again, pre-emptively stopping him from saying anything else embarrassing. Hunk and Pidge took over answering the question instead, filling Shiro in on how they had all met each other and how they had all connected over the years. 

Keith listened to his own history with a strange sense of detachment. 

Of all the Furious Four, he had known Lance the longest, and he had always given that as the reason why he and Lance had also been the closest. Lance had been his friend since middle school, Pidge and Hunk had been his friends since he started with the Air Force just after high school. 

Keith knew Lance best because he’d known him first, he felt at ease faster around Lance because he was the most familiar, the most like family. It’s what Keith had always said, anytime someone asked why he put up with Lance when he always made Keith so angry. It might have been an oversimplification, but it had been close enough.

But looking at them right now, Keith wasn’t so sure that was it. 

Keith had known Shiro for just over a year now, and if he had to look around this room and say which person here was his best friend it would be Shiro. Which friend put him the most at ease? Shiro. Which friend meant the most to him? Shiro.

Which friend best got under his skin? That was still Lance.

The shortness of his time with Shiro had zero bearing on how well Shiro had known him. Truly known him.

Everyone else here, Keith included, would have told Shiro not to have this party at a bowling alley. They all would have explained how desperately Keith would hate it, and would have said that there was no way it could be made palatable. 

But Shiro had known different, and he had known better. He knew a private room, with his best friends, favourite music, and with lights that look like stars would be a perfect party venue, and he made it happen. And he made these stupid shirts for them to wear, because he knew there was no way Keith would already own anything bright enough to pick up on the black light.

Keith’s heart felt full in a way that brought tears to his eyes and threatened to spill over. 

He tipped his head to hide his eyes under his bangs and snuck a look over at Shiro, glowing like something ethereal. 

Shiro was laughing at something Pidge had said and looked quickly to Keith. Keith did his best to pull an adequate smile onto his face.

Shiro turned right back to Pidge, but Keith kept staring at his friend.

Keith felt something lock deep within him, fixing a truth permanently inside him.

He was in love. 

All he wanted from the rest of his life was to be sitting at Shiro’s side just like this. It didn’t matter where or when; even if he was doing something he was sure to hate, he knew it would be ok if Shiro was with him.

The certainty of it washed over him and banished all of his doubts. That little voice from before had been swept away. Every part of him was in agreement. 

Keith shifted in his chair as if nothing happened. A quick glance around the table showed that no one had noticed his brief distraction. 

Another certainty washed over Keith a moment later: now that he was sure, he had to say something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank FUCK it's Friday! 
> 
> And thanks to everyone still reading. I know last chapter was a bit of a bummer, but I hope this one made up for it a bit. And Keith finally made up his mind!! As if he was going to come to any other conclusion, really.
> 
> Also, I have to hand it to Lance. As much as Keith puts up with him, he puts up with a LOT from Keith in return. It's the price of best friendship.
> 
> And wouldn't you just kill to have a tight-shirt, paint-splattered Shiro of your very own?
> 
> Don't forget to feed the writer in comments and kudos. And you can always find me on twitter (and sometimes on tumblr).
> 
> <3 <3 <3


	10. The Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro has a bad dream and Keith comes a-running.

Keith didn’t tell Shiro right away. He didn’t know how, and he didn’t know what to say, or how much to say. It was one thing to tell your best friend you’re romantically interested in them, it was quite another to say you’re desperately in love with them.

Keith wanted to do this right, wanted to do it in a way that wouldn’t jeopardize their friendship. 

Truthfully, he didn’t think anything would ruin their friendship. But if Shiro didn’t feel the same way, then there would have to be some changes. So Keith sat on the information for a while, biding his time until he found the perfect moment. Or at least until he had a basic idea of what he was going to say.

One night in early December the loud and cheery blast of Shiro’s ringtone startled Keith out of a deep sleep. He checked the time as he answered the call: just before 4 in the morning.

“Shiro?” he asked, trying and failing to banish the sleep from his voice.

“Hey Keith.”

Alarm bells rang immediately in Keith’s head at the sound of Shiro’s voice. Shiro had a tone, a forced calm, that he used when he wanted to pretend he wasn’t as freaked out as he felt. 

Keith pushed himself from the bed and started wrangling himself into socks and pants before Shiro said another word.

“It’s nothing really,” Shiro lied, voice still weirdly calm, “I had a bit of a bad dream, nothing major, and I just wanted to talk.”

Another sign that it was worse than he let on? He downplayed the issue. 

“Uh huh?” Keith asked, putting the phone on speaker while he grappled with a sweater. “What happened?”

“It wasn’t anything, really. Just a dumb dream. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

Keith paused for a moment, looking down at the phone in his hand, then he raced out the door in his slippers. 

Shiro had never refused to tell him what had happened before. 

“I’m going to be there in 15 minutes, Shiro,” Keith promised, remembering at the last second to grab his keys and lock his door. 

“Keith, you don’t have to come over. It was really nothing. Just a bad dream.”

“Shiro, I’m coming. I want to be there.”

He heard Shiro let out a deep breath like he had been holding it in for a while. “Thank you Keith.” His voice sounded normal again, and Keith took a deep breath of his own.

“Any time. Do you want to stay on the line while I drive?”

“No. I’ll meet you down at the door, though.”

“Ok, I’ll see you soon.”

Keith took a moment to breathe and calm himself before he began to drive. It was 4 am now, early enough for him to send an email to his supervisor and advise he would need a sick day. It was the first time he’d ever done that for Shiro; he was sure Shiro was going to protest, but Keith’s gut told him it was the right call.

Shiro met Keith at the door just as promised and surprised Keith by pulling him immediately into a hug. 

“Thank you, Keith,” Shiro muttered into the heavy sweater at Keith’s shoulder.

Keith wrapped his arms around Shiro and held him tight. Maintaining the hug, Keith maneuvered Shiro backwards into the lobby so that he could step inside into the warmth. He didn’t let go until Shiro finally pulled back.

“I needed that,” Shiro said with an embarrassed smile.

Sensing that Shiro wasn’t done needing contact, Keith rested a hand over his shoulder, then dropped it down his arm to clasp over his wrist. He nodded to the elevators “are you ok to ride?”

“Yeah,” Shiro smiled sincerely and then led the way over to the elevators and up to his apartment. 

“Sorry for calling you so late. Or, I guess early…” Shiro jolted when he noticed Keith’s feet as they paused just inside the door. “Keith! You didn’t wear shoes?”

“I, uh, was in a rush.” Keith shrugged and took off his slippers as if they were shoes. “And you don’t need to apologize, you know you never need to apologize. I’m here whenever you need me.”

Keith followed Shiro further into the apartment and into the bedroom. 

“Yeah, well…” Shiro hesitated and that same worry from before started to clench in Keith’s stomach. “This isn’t really a… trauma… thing…”

Keith cocked his head at Shiro, not understanding. 

He waited until Shiro got under the covers and sat against the headboard before he did the same.

“The dream wasn’t about the crash or anything, it was about… other things…. You really didn’t have to rush or anything. I just felt a little lonely.”

There he was, downplaying his hurt again. Keith didn’t like it. Shiro never did this; he had been the one to teach Keith the importance of being honest about his emotions and about his pain.

“Hey,” Keith focused Shiro’s attention back on him with another touch to his hand. “I’m not just here for you about the crash. I’m here whenever you need me, whatever the reason.”

Shiro seemed to deflate a little at the words, but the small smile he gave Keith showed him it was a good kind of deflation. 

“This dream obviously got to you,” Keith tilted his head to be more in Shiro’s field of vision, “I don’t like you pretending it’s no big deal when it is.” His thumb rubbed lightly against Shiro’s hand in a way he hoped was soothing. “You don’t have to tell me what it was, but don’t act like you’re fine when you’re not, ok?”

Shiro nodded deeply. Then he made a stuttering noise that was a cross between a sigh and a laugh and he relaxed a bit more against the headboard. “You’re really good at this, Keith.” He turned his hand over to hold Keith’s.

“I had a good teacher.”

Shiro smiled and squeezed the hand. He moved it further into his lap and used his other hand to pluck lightly at Keith’s fingers, examining it like he’d never seen anything so fascinating.

“I dreamed about Curtis. We were back together, well, we were married, and we were celebrating. And he said that we could finally be together now because I was finally fixed. And I thought ‘fixed? There is no fixed, it doesn’t work like that. There’s no broken or fixed. I’ll have good days and bad days till I die.’ But then suddenly I _was_ broken. I shattered to pieces and he looked at me with this look…” Shiro shuddered and Keith leaned forward to line his shoulder against Shiro’s. “This look like he hated me, and he said he guessed he was wrong, that I was still broken and I’d always be broken and he walked out. I tried to run after him, but I couldn’t find him. But I found Adam, and he looked at me with that same look and he called me broken too. I turned away and I saw a whole line of all my exes and I knew they were all trying to tell me how broken I was, how I’d never find love because I’d always be a wreck…”

Shiro paused to take several long breaths. He had done a good job of keeping his voice steady, but at the end he began to crack, like he could still hear their words and he believed them. Keith just watched in despair as Shiro closed his eyes in a long blink and let out a shuddering sigh.

“I tried to find you, then, but I couldn’t. And everywhere I turned there was someone else telling me these horrible things…”

Shiro’s voice broke into a sob.

Keith reached up with a gentle hand and drew Shiro down to rest on his shoulder, wrapping him in a tight hug. He stroked over Shiro’s hair and down his cheek, his heart breaking as he ran him thumb through a wet track of tears.

He made soothing noises, the way he remembered his mom would when he was young, and just held Shiro close, waiting out the tears.

When the sobs seemed to quiet and Shiro’s sniffles grew few and far between, Keith began to talk.

“Shiro, you are not broken. You were right in the dream, there is no broken and no fixed. We’re only people, doing our best, and living our lives. And what happened to you doesn’t mean you can’t or won’t find love. You are so strong, Shiro. You’re the strongest person I know. Not just because you went through absolute hell and survived, but because every day I see you pick up your life and find something of value in yourself and in everyone around you. You have more honesty, and emotional integrity than anyone I’ve ever known.”

Keith didn’t really know where he was finding the words, and he wasn’t even entirely sure Shiro was listening. He just opened his heart and let the words come out freely

“From what you’ve told me, Curtis found you when you were hurting really bad, and was with you when you first started to heal, and he got it in his head that he was fixing you, right? So when the bad days came back, he got frustrated and left. That’s what you said. But that’s not on you. That was his problem for not understanding your situation. For thinking that being healthy is a destination.”

Keith lowered his head and spoke briefly into Shiro’s hair, “Right? Isn’t that what they always say at the meeting? Healthy isn’t a destination where you can just stop and build yourself a house. It’s a journey that you’re always taking, and you go through the good and the bad, and you steer yourself as best you can through the extremes. Right?”

He felt Shiro nod against his shoulder, his sniffles had returned, but they were gentle sniffles for gentle tears. Keith pressed a soft, fond smile into Shiro’s scalp.

“That’s what you did, that’s what you do every day. Curtis didn’t get that, and that’s why it wouldn’t work, why it would never have worked. But just because it didn’t work with him, or anyone before, doesn’t mean there’s no one. It doesn’t mean you’re broken or that you don’t deserve love. Plenty of people love you, Shiro.”

Keith took a small breath and pushed on before he could stop himself.

“I love you, Shiro.”

The words hung in the air for a moment, Keith could feel Shiro’s soft gasp as the words sunk in. Shiro tried to pull back and look at Keith, but Keith held him still at his chest.

“K-eith…”

“Shh,” Keith said softly, “I know. That’s not what you need right now, that’s not what this is about. We can talk about it later. But it’s true, and I thought you should know it. You are loved, by many people, who know you and see you for who and what you are.” Shiro settled back into Keith’s arms and said nothing.

“That dream was just playing on your insecurities. Anyone who knows you, really knows you, would never say you’re broken. They’d all say how strong you are, how kind and compassionate.”

It was hard not to sound like he was just listing all the reasons he loved Shiro, because he loved Shiro for those reasons and for hundreds more. Keith kept talking for a long time, until he felt the steady rhythm of Shiro’s breathing against his shoulder and realized he had fallen asleep. 

It was nearly 6 in the morning. 

Keith gently shuffled Shiro back onto his pillow, then snuck Shiro’s phone off the night stand and took it into the living room. 

Shiro’s work didn’t allow them to email in for sick time, so Keith found his supervisor’s number and left a voicemail saying Shiro would not be in for the day, and to call him after 9 if they needed any medical notes or anything.

Then Keith shut off Shiro’s alarm clock and crept back into bed.

As soon as he was under the covers, Shiro moved to wrap his arms around his chest, seeking out the warmth and comfort of his arms even in sleep. He murmured Keith’s name on a sigh as he settled.

Keith fell asleep not long after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hold on to your hats boys!!!! We have a confession!!!!! XD
> 
> We'll let the boys sleep for now, because they've had a long night. But next chapter!! They'd better sit down and talk! (Except there's still multiple chapters left to this fic, lol)
> 
> Thank you for reading this, and for sticking with me through this. I don't want to give anything away for the next chapter, but I will say that it's from Shiro's perspective, finally. 
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated. I've been in writer's block/writer's blah mode for like 2-3 weeks now, but you never know, telling me how good I am at things might help me care about my many many (MANY) WIPs. *wink*


	11. The Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Shiro overthinks and everything is awkward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We finally get to see a bit from Shiro's perspective.

Shiro couldn’t say what woke him up some hours later, but the soft sound of Keith’s voice in the living room pulled at the strings of wakefulness until he was fully alert to his surroundings. He glanced at the clock (noon) and then held his breath to try and make out the faint murmurs through the cracked bedroom door.

“Yes sir, I will…. Uh huh, yes. Ok, and you said he doesn’t need…. Ok, yes… Ok… Thank you sir. Yes, you too… bye.”

Shiro scrambled for his phone when Keith’s steps approached the door, but he couldn’t find it in the blankets. He felt guilty for eavesdropping on a conversation he clearly wasn’t intended to hear. He might have stopped his eavesdropping, but he had never heard Keith call anyone “Sir” before and it had intrigued him into listening further, trying to suss out who Keith was speaking with.

Keith stepped through the door and stopped in his tracks when he saw Shiro sitting up in bed. A creeping blush lit up his cheeks, and suddenly Shiro remembered the night before.

Keith loved him?

Shiro didn’t have a chance to dwell on the thought because Keith started moving again. Keith held out a hand, offering Shiro his own phone. That explained where his phone had gone.

“That was Iverson,” Keith explained, aiming his remark at the ground. He stood awkwardly at the side of the bed like he didn’t know what to do with himself. “I hope you don’t mind, I called in sick for you.” 

“That’s…” Shiro drew out the word while he processed the news, “really thoughtful, Keith.” He paused, “don’t you work today?” Keith hovered at the edge of the bed, his energy tense and awkward. It was odd, usually Keith would just climb in and make himself at home, but now he seemed too timid to come any closer. 

“I called in sick too.” Keith shrugged and tried to play it off cool, but Shiro knew it meant giving up a day’s sick time (something they both did their best to hoard for emergencies) and Shiro took it to heart. Though Keith’s nonchalance couldn’t stop him from feeling guilty.

“Keith. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to.” Keith’s voice was always soft around Shiro, it another thing Shiro took to heart, but Keith’s next sentence was soft in a way Shiro had never encountered before: vulnerable. “You scared me last night.”

“Keith…”

“I sent the email before I even came over here. You’ve never not told me what was wrong, so I guess I just panicked a little,” Keith shrugged again, still not meeting Shiro’s eyes. He rubbed his toe against the carpet, looking sheepish. “It’s no big deal, I have lots of sick time.”

Shiro wanted to say something more, something to reassure Keith that he was fine, or maybe something to thank him for caring so much. But Keith stepped back from the bed, turning away from Shiro before he could gather the words.

“Are you hungry?”

“Uhh,” no, he wanted to talk this out. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Cool.”

Keith slipped out of the room and left Shiro to his own devices. Shiro sat in his bed, unsure what to do. This was his apartment, shouldn’t he be the one making breakfast? Shouldn’t Keith be the one being treated like a guest?

It was clear Keith didn’t want to talk about things right now. Maybe that was a blessing in disguise, because Shiro was going to need a moment to gather his thoughts.

The night before seemed mostly a blur of high-strung emotions and codependence. Everything Keith had said had resonated within him at the time, but to try and recall any of the particulars now was impossible. Only one moment truly stuck out in Shiro’s mind, and he had no idea what to do with that memory.

“How do you feel about waffles?” Keith asked from the doorway, a box of frozen chocolate chip waffles in his hand.

“Sounds good.”

“Ok.” Keith hesitated before walking away again, “Where did you hide the toaster this time?”

Shiro chuckled and shifted to shove his feet into slippers. “The same drawer I always keep it. I don’t move it, you just can’t keep track of it.”

“Why don’t you keep it on the counter like a normal person instead of hiding it away like a weirdo?”

“It’s not weird.” Shiro was reasonably sure it was not weird. It’s not like he used the thing often enough for it to sit permanently on his counter.

He followed Keith into the kitchen and pulled out the large drawer that held his toaster and his blender.

“No, it’s definitely weird.” Keith plucked the toaster out of Shiro’s hands and spun to place it in the corner and plug it in.

Shiro felt his breath come a little easier now. Keith was acting more normal, joking around and even making eye contact again.

They made the entire box of waffles and washed it down with some fruit and yogurt before settling down on the couch to watch tv. It was a Thursday afternoon so there was not a lot to watch beside game shows, soap operas, and daytime talk shows. Keith settled on watching Ellen, saying she was a perfect blend of all three.

Shiro glanced Keith’s way as they watched. He was sitting at the polar opposite side of the couch, angled away with his feet curled up at his side. It was his usual way to sit, but the distance between them was odd; usually they sat closer. 

It was hard not to take it as a sign, but at the same time, Keith looked completely normal. He was acting fine now, no averted gaze, awkward silences, or tense posture. Maybe Shiro had just imagined that strangeness before? Maybe Keith had just genuinely been too hungry to climb back into the bed, and Shiro had just imagined all the rest?

He definitely hadn’t imagined Keith’s confession last night. He had been awake for that, sniveling against Keith’s chest like a lost child. 

But then again, maybe ‘confession’ was too strong of a word. What had Keith said, really, except that he loved Shiro. 

He didn’t say romantically.

Yes, they were talking about Curtis and Adam, which implied romantic love, but hadn’t Keith followed it up by saying lots of people loved him? People like Matt, Pidge, and Hunk; they all loved Shiro, but definitely not in a romantic way.

And of course Keith loved Shiro! Why shouldn’t he? They had been through enough together by this point that it wasn’t even really a question. Even if Keith hadn’t said it, Shiro had known.

But at the moment, last night, when he said it against Shiro’s hair, Shiro had thought he meant something different. He had been sure Keith meant it in that other, romantic way.

The shock of it had all but knocked the breath out of Shiro’s lungs, and he had been a heartbeat from pouring out the entire contents of his heart at Keith’s feet when Keith told him not to. He said they’d talk about it later.

That’s right! He had said they would talk about it. What would there be to talk about if Keith hadn’t meant it romantically? There would be nothing, it would be a completely useless, empty conversation. It’s not like Keith had said ‘I love you: no homo.’ He said ‘I love you and we’ll talk about this later when you’re feeling better.’

Keith laughed softly at something that happened on the tv screen and Shiro mirrored it absently, pretending to pay attention while his mind spiraled. He tried to calm and tell himself that everything was going to be ok, but a lingering doubt still pulled at Shiro’s gut.

Shiro had been hopelessly gone on Keith for so long now. All of their friends knew; even Matt, who had only seen him and Keith together a handful of times, had mentioned Shiro’s poorly concealed crush. There was virtually no way that Keith hadn’t noticed Shiro’s long stares, deep blushes, or idiotic stammering every time Keith got close. It was just so statistically improbable it would boggle the mind. 

Shiro’s heart sank. That could only mean one thing.

If Keith knew about Shiro’s crush (and how could he not?) then the only reason he could have to talk about saying ‘I love you’ would be to break it to Shiro gently.

Shiro had been in the middle of a crisis at the time, and Keith was unfailingly kind at the best of times. Keith would have said exactly what Shiro needed to hear to get him through the night and would have held off his inevitable ‘but only as a friend’ for another time.

Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose to try and calm the sudden slurry of emotions churning through him. He wanted to cry.

He could only hope this didn’t ruin their friendship.

No. No, that was disingenuous, and it was unfair to Keith. Shiro knew that it would not ruin their friendship. 

It would change it; for instance, Shiro would have to stop the all-nighters in Keith’s bed. But this wouldn’t be the end of them. Shiro knew well enough to know that. 

The abrupt sound of Keith clearing his throat jarred Shiro from his gloomy thoughts and brought him back to the present.

“Oh, ya, uh… Iverson said he doesn’t need a medical note for today. And he said to get some good rest, and not to worry about work.”

“Ok,” Shiro nodded. He knew he hadn’t needed a note, but it was nice to know Keith had thought of it. 

He stared, unseeing at the tv screen for a few moments before he realized the heat against his cheek was from the heavy gaze Keith levelled at him from across the couch.

“What?”

“He said not to worry about work,” Keith repeated.

“O…k…” Shiro quirked his brow. He had no idea what Keith was getting at. “I’m not worried about work.”

Keith shifted in his seat, uncurling like a cobra and leaning forward, concern evident in his crystal blue eyes.

“Is it the dream, still?” His voice shifted naturally to his gentle, concerned tone. It made Shiro’s heart ache.

He wanted Keith so badly; wanted to love him in ways he’d only ever dreamed of. The burning, incandescent, eternal flame of passion that forged two souls together so that age and wear meant nothing to the strength of their love. Shiro would admit that he was a hopeless romantic, but he had never been that way before Keith. And he never wanted to even think of a time after Keith.

“No. I think… I think I’m ok from the dream, now.” Honestly, Shiro was so wrapped up in this ‘I love you’ dilemma that he had all but forgotten about the dream that caused it all in the first place.

Keith frowned. “Then what is it?” He pulled back on the couch, crossing his arms to look critically at Shiro, “You’re clearly worried about something.”

Shiro gulped and tried to ignore the gaping hole the filled his chest when Keith pulled back. Keith never pulled away from Shiro; not when he was worried about him. 

Others might not believe it, but Keith was usually the first to initiate physical contact and comfort between them, and whenever Shiro showed any signs of distress Keith always moved inwards, refocusing Shiro until Keith was the only thing in his universe.

Pulling away… it hurt…

“Uhh…” Shiro could hear his voice crack, “No, it’s nothing. It’s nothing.” Keith clearly was not buying it. “I guess it must just still be the dream, maybe?” it hurt to lie, but Shiro needed more time to prepare for the pain of rejection. “Or maybe not enough sleep.” Shiro forced a yawn. “Yeah, actually, I think I’ll go lie down again.”

Shiro stood up and walked to his bedroom with a fast step.

He shut the door behind him, separating himself from Keith with a deafening ‘click.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHH!!! We're so close to the end, and I feel like this one ends on a cliffhanger a bit. But just bear with me, patience yields focus and all that.
> 
> So now we finally have it confirmed from Shiro's own perspective that he's head over heels for Keith. I'm hoping that his awkward disaster-gay crush on Keith has been pretty clear through the earlier chapters, because he's definitely been enamoured for a good long while. Poor baby. 
> 
> Honestly, "I love you: no homo" might be my favourite thing I've ever written. I enjoy it, and find it funny, but also it's my worst fear, ya know?
> 
> Anyways! You should consider dropping a kudos or a comment! Or follow me on tumblr or twitter.
> 
> And I'll see you guys again next week!


	12. The Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Shiro FINALLY talk!!!! And then we learn a little bit more about Keith's accident.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy are you ready? We are picking up right where we left off!
> 
> Mild trigger warning:  
> The end of this chapter describe's Keith's accident and his reaction to the trauma when it was happening. It's probably a little more detailed than their other discussions. I don't think it's particularly triggering, but I'm the one who wrote it, so it's hard to gauge. 
> 
> If you're sensitive to this, please read with caution. It all comes after the time jump, so the first 2/3rds of the chapter is fine.

Keith gave Shiro to the count of 90 before he followed him into the bedroom. 

The room was dark enough considering it was mid-afternoon, but there was still enough light to see clearly. Shiro was already in the bed under the covers, his back turned to Keith.

Keith let the door slide closed with a noise to announce his presence. Shiro didn’t move, so Keith snuck over to the bed and crawled over top of the covers until he lay down parallel with Shiro, eyes glued to the back of his head.

“Don’t lie to me, Shiro, please.” Keith cringed at the undercurrent of desperation in his own voice, but there was no avoiding it. He had told Shiro he loved him, and now he had no idea how to bring it up; when he finally tried, Shiro lied and ran away. Keith could have handled the running, but the lying? That hurt.

The increased tension across Shiro’s shoulders was the only sign he had heard Keith’s words.

“It’s not nothing, and I don’t think it’s about the dream either…. Are you scared for our friendship?” Shiro stiffened: right on the money. “Please, don’t be scared. We’ll be friends, no matter what. I’ll still be here for you, no matter – no matter _what_ , Shiro. Please don’t doubt that.”

Keith took a breath. His voice was raw and vulnerable in a way he wasn’t used to. But, he meant what he said, and he reminded himself that Shiro wouldn’t run out on him either. 

Shiro had taught him it was ok to be vulnerable, taught him how to be vulnerable. Now was the time to put that to good use.

“I’m sorry if what I said last night hurt you, or confused you.” He lifted a hand to curl a fist into the back of Shiro’s shirt, then curled the other one beside it, holding on for dear life. “I know you probably don’t feel the same, and I’m sorry if it felt like I was trying to take advantage of your moment. I know it was dumb and selfish for me to say it when you were hurting like that. I really didn’t mean anything by it; I wasn’t trying to manipulate you or anything. I just…” Keith wiggled awkwardly forward, just enough that he could press his forehead between Shiro’s shoulder blades and take some strength from the contact. “You were so sad, and I needed you to know you are loved, but it came out wrong…”

Shiro sniffed and Keith fell instantly silent. He gripped Shiro’s shirt a little tighter and waited to see if Shiro was going to say anything.

“So…” Shiro paused and Keith waited, “you don’t love me?”

Was that pain in Shiro’s voice?

“No, I do love you,” the words burst out of Keith before he could hold them back. He flinched against Shiro’s back. He was supposed to be making this easier for Shiro, not digging himself deeper!

“You said it came out wrong.”

“I did.” Keith took a deep breath and chewed on all the words he wanted to say. He didn’t know what to say, or how to make it better. He wanted so badly to fix it, but also he needed to see this through. 

There were things he could say that would make this all go away; the panicked beating of his heart could be replaced by a dull ache that would likely last the rest of their friendship. Alternatively, there were things he could say that would make this a thousand times more painful, but then at least it would be out there.

“The truth?” Keith asked.

Shiro gave no response that Keith could see with his forehead pressed against the man’s back and two fistfuls of his shirt, but he knew the answer all the same. Shiro would always want the truth.

“I am in love with you, and I have been for a while. It came out wrong because I didn’t want to tell you like that; it felt like I was taking advantage of you when you were hurt, but that’s not how I meant it I swear.” 

Shiro tried to pull away while Keith was speaking, but Keith just closed his eyes and clung tighter to Shiro’s shirt, his brain a constant refrain of ‘don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave me,’ despite the steadiness of his words.

“Uh, Keith, can you let go of my shirt, please?” Shiro said mildly. 

Keith pulled it tighter for a fraction of a moment, fighting his instinct to cling so tight Shiro could never leave, then he released Shiro. Released him to get up and leave the bed, leave Keith, leave the whole apartment if he wanted.

But Shiro didn’t leave. He turned on his elbows, swinging his hips until he was facing Keith.

Shiro took Keith’s hands and pressed them to his chest where they instinctively grabbed new fistfuls of his shirt. His smile was good natured and understanding, and Keith thought to himself that at least he was going to be let down gently.

“ _In_ love with me?” Shiro asked, his smile moving closer so that it was all Keith could see. His inflection was important and Keith understood his question.

Keith nodded. He wanted to hide his face, but Shiro was too close.

His heart was racing now, still from panic but also from a growing excitement that he could not subdue.

“Good,” Shiro said simply.

“Good?” Keith tilted his head so his wide eyes could meet Shiro’s.

“Yes.” Shiro’s whisper brushed a sweet touch of air across Keith’s lips that was followed by the gentle sweep of Shiro’s lips.

Shiro cradled Keith’s jaw with a large hand and pulled back just enough to give Keith the softest look he had ever been given.

Keith’s body thrilled at the touch. He tingled from head to toe.

Shiro had just kissed him and was now looking at him like… like… like he had never seen a star before and Keith was the entire night sky. Keith had never been looked at like that before; honestly, it shook him down to his core in a way a kiss could never do.

At this point it was unnecessary, but still Shiro whispered against Keith’s lips, “I am in love with you too.”

Maybe it wasn’t so unnecessary. A bubble of blind mirth burst out of Keith once the soft words had sunk into his brain. He laughed and pulled Shiro even closer.

Their next kiss was firmer, less tentative, and Keith felt the power of it surge into his bones. Shiro’s lips were soft and firm and smooth and damp and everything Keith could ever want. More than he could want, actually, because when Keith pulled back a few moments later and nervously licked at his lips he could taste the syrup of Shiro’s waffles and it made him hungry for more.

“You taste like waffles,” Shiro said breathlessly, stealing the thought right out of Keith’s brain.

Keith attempted to say ‘so do you,’ but the words came out a garbled mess because he pressed them against Shiro’s waiting mouth. 

Keith kissed Shiro with abandon, and in all the ways he had dreamed of doing for the last several months. Shiro was just as eager, matching Keith’s enthusiasm with his own until they were panting and gasping around each other. 

“Is this ok?” Keith asked when he pulled back for a quick breath. He grazed his lips lightly against Shiro’s as they panted. His fists were full of Shiro’s hair now, gripping at the short silver hairs to hold Shiro close.

“God, yes,” Shiro sighed, practically diving down into another long, sweet kiss. 

“Should we talk about it?”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I…” Keith looked into Shiro’s eyes. He shook his head and pressed forward again, teeth clicking lightly as he threw himself into the action with fervor. 

Eventually, Shiro caressed a long, slow touch down the curve of Keith’s spine until he could pull Keith’s chest tight against his own. Their hearts hammered together in their chests as they continued to lose themselves in their kisses. 

Keith began to feel an urge to get even closer, to roll their hips together until they built pressure and heat to rival the sun. Twice he almost gave in to his urge before he began to pull back.

That would be too much. They did still have things to talk about.

Keith knew how dangerous it would be for them to push each other too soon, no matter how natural it felt now. He might be able to justify bad behaviour for his own mental health, but he could not do so for Shiro’s. 

Slowly, he eased back, his hands moving to hold Shiro’s cheeks while their kisses grew shorter and sweeter. Shiro didn’t fight the change of pace, he helped it by leaning back just enough to give them some breathing room. His thumb settled over Keith’s ribs and moved in a soothing back and forth.

After a while they cooled enough for Keith to pull away and lay on his back looking up at Shiro. Immediately he jumped back up to press another kiss, already missing the warmth and flavour of Shiro’s lips. 

Shiro chuckled and returned the kiss with another. Then they both settled down, Shiro with his head in his hand looking down at Keith who lay in a tangled mess of his own hair.

“You’re beautiful,” Shiro breathed. It took him a moment of looking at Keith’s deep blush before he realized what he had said. “I mean, you’re handsome. Gorgeous?”

Keith looked down from his embarrassment. None of those sounded like apt descriptions of himself, but he liked hearing it. He spotted Shiro’s other hand and reached for it, pulling it up and linking their fingers together. 

“You can call me beautiful,” he murmured.

“Good,” Shiro sounded relieved, “because you are. Incredibly beautiful.” He squeezed their hands together lightly.

“Y-you too.” Keith raised tentative fingers to run between the silver locks of Shiro’s hair, watching the long bangs lift from his face then drop down in a cascade over his eyes. 

He blushed again under the intense stare Shiro was giving him. 

“So you…” Keith took a short breath, “you really love me too?”

“You didn’t know? I thought it was obvious.”

Keith shook his head lightly, “Not to me. Once, maybe, I thought I saw you looking, but…”

“I was,” Shiro was quick to say, “I don’t know which time you’re talking about, but I was.”

Keith couldn’t help the gratified curve of his lips. He watched in amazement as Shiro’s gaze drifted down to it, leaning down like he was pulled by gravity until their lips met again. 

“So,” Shiro asked a moment later, after he had pried himself off of Keith’s lips, “what does this mean?”

“Umm…” Keith drew a blank. What did what mean?

“Are we dating, now?”

“Can we be?” Keith sounded like a moony teenager, but his excitement and nerves could not be withheld. He was dangerously close to actually bursting from happiness, and trying to contain it would only lead to fatalities.

“If you want.”

Keith didn’t like the way Shiro hedged the statement, like he was doubting Keith’s desire for him – for _this_.

“I want it so much more than you know. Shiro, I…” Keith thought briefly of the sheer depth of emotion he felt for Shiro and his eyes responded by filling with unhelpful tears. 

Shiro watched the unadulterated display of emotions run streaking across Keith’s face; it seemed to hit him like he was stunned.

“I don’t think I can live without you. You’re…” Keith struggled with the words, with the entire concept he was trying in vain to explain, “It’s like they took my soul and put it in your body.”

Keith released Shiro’s hand to place it over Shiro’s heart. He thought for a moment that that would be too much, he finally pushed too far, but then he saw tears of joy hanging in Shiro’s eyes as well, and Shiro’s hand clasped over Keith’s, holding it to his heart.

“I can’t explain it,” Keith continued, “but you’re a part of me. You share my pain, and my heartbreak, and my joy, and my comfort. I think, if I had been in the right frame of mind, I would have loved you on sight at that first meeting.”

Shiro shushed him then, dropping once more for another kiss. 

They couldn’t get enough kisses.

When Shiro pulled back, his eyes were still shining with unshed tears. 

“Keith, I understand, I feel the same way. I’ve loved you almost as long as I’ve known you, and I feel like I’ve known you my entire life. Or longer.”

This time, Keith lifted himself up to steal the kiss. 

When he pulled back he let his gaze show the force of his love. “So, we’re dating, then.”

“Good,” Shiro murmured.

“Good,” Keith replied.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Roughly a year later

Keith’s chair creaked loudly across the cement floor when he stood up, making fine tremors run up the length of his spine so that he had to shake them off before he could take a step. 

Shiro grabbed his hand briefly as he slipped past Shiro’s chair and walked down the aisle, up to the raised podium.

“Hello,” Keith said, feeling hopelessly awkward. He leaned too close to the mic and the sound of his voice startled him. He leaned back, away from it, with a few murmuring chuckles from the crowd. “I’m, uh… Keith. Former pilot for the armed forces. I, uh… I think most of you know me…” he smiled at some of the familiar faces, “ok, all of you know me.” The crowd gave another lighthearted murmur.

“But this is my first time actually sharing with you guys. Obviously, half of my story is redacted,” that one got a bit of a chuckle from some of the older veterans in the back, “but I, uh, wanted to tell you a bit about my struggle.”

Keith took a deep breath and reminded himself that no one was rushing him. He counted to 5 and then started.

“I was flying along the border of neutral territory when suddenly me and my team were surrounded by enemy drones. We engaged and got caught in a tight firefight. I got caught with 3 drones on my tail that I couldn’t ditch, so I flew higher and higher, hoping to short out their guidance systems before I ran out of room in the sky. They pushed me high: much higher than my bird was meant to go. Before I could lose them, I lost my left engine. My systems began to crash and, well, one thing after another went wrong until my plane completely shut down and I was headed back to Earth the fast way.”

Keith took another breath to prepare himself for what was coming, his eyes locked on the snack table at the back of the room. Hunk had prepared special red velvet donuts just for Keith’s first share day, and he used that knowledge to bolster himself.

“My plane wouldn’t eject. There was no power to the system whatsoever, so no lights, no sounds, no alarms. There was a smell of smoke and gunpowder, but no fire that I could see. Everything was disconnected: muted, like the danger wasn’t even real. Colours turned to gray. I managed to set off the manual eject, but I was already too close to the ground. I had to glide myself away from the wreckage before I could pull my chute. The sound of the wind should have been deafening, but I couldn’t hear a thing.

“I fell and fell and fell, and there was only silence until I hit the ground.”

Keith took another breath. His hands were gripped on the side of the podium, knuckles white from strain. He eased his hands off and shook the tension out of his fingers.

“I had told myself I had come to grips with my death as I fell through the sky, that I had accepted it. But, when I landed and the sound, and the pain, and the colour returned to the world, I had brought all that fear down with me.

“I’ve been retired from active duty for 3 years now, I’ve been working with a therapist from the day I retired, and I’ve been coming here to these meetings for over 2 years. I’m still healing. I still wake up sometimes at night and it’s too quiet and I think I’m falling again. And if I get too overwhelmed and start to panic, sometimes I’ll lose my sound or my colour. But these days I have a support system that I could never have dreamed of before, and you guys play a big part of that. I don’t know where I’d be without these meetings, and I don’t just mean because they led me to my fiancé.” There was a twitter of real laughter among the crowd at that. 

“You guys have helped give my life colour again. I’d like to thank you for the last 2 years, and for all the years we’ve got left to come. Thank you.”  
Keith ducked his head to avoid the applause that filled the room. He jumped down from the stage and rushed back to Shiro’s side to hold his hand and hide his embarrassment in Shiro’s strong shoulder. 

“That was perfect, Babe,” Shiro said, lifting Keith’s hand to press a kiss to its back. 

“I stumbled a lot at first,” Keith argued, ever critical of himself.

Shiro shrugged, “Everyone stumbles at first. You did good.”

Keith shifted uncomfortably in his seat but did not protest any further. Shiro turned his head to hide his proud smile: he would get Keith to take a compliment one day, if it killed him.

Then he felt the soft squeeze of Keith’s hand in his and Shiro could no longer hide his smile. He pulled Keith’s hand into his lap and covered their twined fingers with his metal hand.

Just as always, Keith held his hand like he was never letting go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THEY DID THE THING!!!
> 
> They're in LOVE and they're ENGAGED and I'm so happy and proud of my boys! We all knew you could get there!
> 
> There is one chapter left. It's more of an epilogue. It's where the sex lives. It wasn't right to have them jump immediately into bed together, considering how careful they are with each other's feelings. I'm pretty pleased with it, I think it's the longest chapter in the entire fic, lol. (Of course it is, a bitch can't help but get wordy and detailed with it comes to the sexings lol)
> 
> So, I kind of do have a pet peeve for that trope where someone's love interest is really upset about something and they take that opportunity to kiss the love interest because I always think they're being really selfish and taking away the focus. Like, it's very "I see you're in pain, and I'm making this about me and my feelings and now you need to deal with this as well as everything else you have going on" and it bugs me. That's not what Keith did, but he does worry that's how it came off. Also I'd just like to say that one of the many (many, many) reasons I love ATLA is because when Aang does something similar Katara calls him out on it and tells him straight up "I'm not ready and you need to give me time." <3 <3
> 
> In other news! With the last chapter coming (probably) next weekend, after that I'm going to be starting to post a Sheith Ru Paul's Drag Race AU fic!! And here's a hint: Coran is Ru Paul! <3 <3 <3 So make sure you follow me on tumblr or twitter for updates on other fics. (Preferrably twitter, that's also where I post all the cute VLD fandom and BL merch I keep buying)
> 
> Thanks for reading! And don't forget to shower me in praises, kudos, and comments!


	13. The Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The long-awaited, sexy conclusion to a story about sad boys who cuddle their way to happiness and mental stability.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a sap and couldn't name the last chapter 'The End' so I named it 'The Beginning' cos it's the beginning of their beautiful life together! T.T

The new ring sat heavy on his finger but Keith felt light as air with it on. 

Literally nothing was going to bring him down tonight. Not the drama of having his and Shiro’s families in the same room, not the fact that the free wine had made his mom and step-dad unexpectedly handsy, and not any of the wild and crazy shenanigans Lance kept trying to pull.

He didn’t care that Vrepit Sal’s Catering had required a stern talking to from Hunk after the first round of appetizers. He didn’t care that DJ Rolo played some godawful music so loud the beats had replaced his heartbeat. He didn’t care that Lance had forced a gaudy blue garter over top of Keith’s white pant leg and then held him down in a chair while Shiro awkwardly removed it and flung it so hard it landed on the cake.

All he cared about was the strange, heavy weight on his left hand, and the bright twinkle in Shiro’s eye every time he caught Keith admiring it.

Currently, Keith was standing at the edge of the dance floor, a flute of champagne teetering dangerously in his hand while his fingers absently circled the thin, black wedding band.

He was a little torn. On the one hand, Shiro was waltzing with Krolia and absolutely charming her off her feet. It was a sight Keith wanted to drink into his soul – etch into his heart so he could take it out on rainy days just to admire it. On the other hand, Shiro was out of Keith’s immediate reach and that was completely unacceptable. It was their wedding day! And Keith had just enough champagne in him to feel justified in demanding his new husband stay within snuggling distance at all times through the night.

Keith inspected the half-empty glass in his hand. Perhaps he’d had enough champagne.

As if on cue, Lance sidled up to him to press another flute into his hand.

“Come on, Keithy-boy, it’s your wedding!” he said, like the wedding negated the fact that it’s been several years since Keith’s last drink. Like the glass he drank during the toasts and the one he was nursing now hadn’t already given his blood a buzz. 

Keith accepted the glass but was grateful when it was snatched away a moment later by Pidge. 

“Lance, you’re a horrible influence,” she said accusingly, taking the half-drunk glass from Keith as well and downing that in one gulp. “Ahh!” she looked thoughtfully at the two glasses in her hands, “we’re definitely getting better stuff for our wedding.” She made a face like she was trying to scrape the taste off her tongue before she downed the other glass with a flourish.

Keith turned to make a comment about Pidge’s impressive ability to drink them all under the table, but he was stopped by the jaw-dropped look plastered across Lance’s face.

Lance shoved Keith unceremoniously away in his haste to get to Pidge, holding her glass-filled hands by the wrists and leaning to shove his wide-eyed face close to hers.

“You mean that, babe?”

Pidge rolled her eyes, but Keith didn’t miss the dark blush that spread across her cheeks. “Like you don’t already have the whole thing planned.”

That was true. Lance had taken his role as best man (or, as Lance repeatedly insisted, maid of honour) very seriously and he had been prepared in a way that suggested he had a large, hidden binder at home with “Mr. Lance Holt” scribbled on the cover and lace samples sticking out the sides. 

“Yeah… but… could you? Would you?” Lance’s face pressed even closer, until they were nose to nose.

Keith reached between them and silently pried the empty champagne flutes from Pidge’s hand. He backed away before he could hear whatever sappy reply Pidge had to give. He knew her usual reserves of sarcasm and wit were useless against Lance’s raw emotional sincerity. Sure enough, a moment later the two were locked in a passionate embrace. 

Lance did not leave her side for the rest of the night.

Over time, Keith found a new spot along the edge of the dance floor to hover, this time standing with Hunk while a very pregnant Shay sat nearby nursing a bottle of sparkling apple juice. They watched the dancers in mute admiration.

Kolivan had replaced Shiro as his mother’s dance partner, and Keith was pointedly ignoring Krolia’s wandering hands by watching the skilled way Lance tugged and twirled Pidge on the dance floor.

Just then, Lance twirled Pidge in close, holding her tight in his arms, his expression soft and mooning.

“Why am I not surprised to see that Lance is the most obnoxiously in love person at my own wedding?” Keith asked Hunk dryly.

Hunk turned to Keith just as a large and familiar presence drew up against Keith’s back. Keith curled instinctively into Shiro’s chest, his head falling back to where it fit just so into the crook of Shiro’s neck. He couldn’t help the satisfied smile that painted his face at his husband’s return.

“Hi baby,” Shiro greeted, and Keith cooed mildly in response, tilting into the quick press of Shiro’s lips against his hair.

Hunk snorted and raised an eyebrow at Keith. “Yeah, sure bud. Lance is the most disgusting in love… sure.”

Keith blushed at Hunk’s heavy irony but couldn’t argue with it. It was his wedding day, he was allowed to be obnoxious.

Shiro’s strong arms wrapped around Keith, holding him close and swaying them both to the music. Just like that, Keith had no desire for further conversation with Hunk, so he tilted his head a little more and bent and arm behind him to touch at the puppy hairs along the back of Shiro’s neck. 

“Did you have fun?” he asked.

“I did. Your mother’s quite the dancer, though I think she likes her new dance partner a little better.” There was a teasing lilt to Shiro’s voice that Keith patently ignored. He had already seen enough to guess at what his mother was doing on the dance floor and he did not need to see it.

“Good thing. I wouldn’t want to have to fight my own mother on my wedding day.”

“Should we show them how it’s done?” Shiro’s grip on Keith’s side shifted as if he were preparing to swing Keith around and pull him onto the dance floor.

Keith hummed for a second, then pressed himself a half-step back so that his body lined more closely against Shiro’s. “No. I can think of a few things that might be more fun.”

Shiro laughed at that, his grip changing again to hold at Keith’s hips. 

Even under the layers and layers of his white tuxedo, Keith could feel the intent of the touch. It was mild, but open to more.

Keith grinned and began to take control of their swaying.

“K-Keith…” Keith could feel Shiro’s nervous glance around the room from the way his hair pulled against Shiro’s 5 o’clock shadow. “Maybe we should take this elsewhere.”

“I’m in no hurry,” Keith said, curling his fingers through Shiro’s hair. 

“Is this what champagne does to you?” Shiro sounded in awe.

“It’s what you do to me.”

Though his eyes were still open, Keith couldn’t see anything that was going on around them. He was far too preoccupied with the warm pressure of Shiro’s touch through his clothes, and the steady rhythm of his breathing along his back. Each breath stirred the small hairs that curled around Keith’s ears and the warm tickling along his skin made him feel giggly.

Maybe it was a bit of the champagne, too.

Yes, right now Keith was in a crowd – a rather large one, in fact – and normally that meant he was reserved and on guard. But this was a crowd of family and loved ones, and he was safe and secure in his new husband’s – _husband’s_! – arms. Keith could not even begin to give a damn whose eyes might be on them right now.

“Keith.” 

Shiro’s voice was heated and dangerous and oh! that got Keith’s attention. A squeezing command from Shiro halted Keith’s hips.

Keith twisted his neck to try and get a glimpse of the fire burning in Shiro’s grey eyes, and he was not disappointed.

“Let’s get out of here, then,” he said seductively. He tilted his hips one last time, letting Shiro bury a soft groan into his hair before he pulled away. 

They made their best bee-line out of the reception hall, waving rushed goodbyes to their guests and refusing to stop for more than a passing hug from those that stood between them and the door.

Indulgent giggles followed them out of the room and into the hotel lobby, but neither Keith nor Shiro paid them any attention.

Instead, Keith stormed the front desk to get their room key, and marched them to the elevator with a fervor that kept the other hotel guests from joining their ascent.

Jackets, bow ties, and cummerbunds lined the floor of their hotel room within seconds of the door locking shut.

Shiro had sat on the bed to pull off his socks when Keith launched himself on top of his husband and knocked him flat on his back.

“Ouff! You’re going to kill me, Keith!” Shiro laughed; it wouldn’t be a bad way to go, though, dying with a lapful of Keith.

Keith answered by worming his tongue into Shiro’s mouth while his fingers fought with the small buttons of Shiro’s dress shirt.

He pulled away with a smacking sound to focus his attention on the elusive buttons.

“Can’t a guy be excited to spend some alone time with his husband?” he asked, hooting with delight when he worked one of the buttons free.

He began to work on the next one, but then smooth, thick fingers lined through his hair and pulled him down into a kiss that left Keith panting.

“Husband,” Shiro said darkly before pulling Keith into another passionate kiss. 

His body worked like a piston under Keith, lifting them both up and dragging them to the more comfortable centre of the bed. Keith grunted into their kiss with every swing of Shiro’s powerful hips.

Keith grinned down at Shiro when they finally broke for air. 

“Like that, do you?” he asked, then explained when he saw the confused pull of Shiro’s eyebrows. “‘Husband?’ You like it.”

“I do like that,” Shiro agreed, pulling Keith’s hand up to hold it before his eyes. With a light touch, Shiro separated the ring finger from the others and pulled Keith’s hand down to cover the dark band in slow, steamy kisses. Keith’s heart jumped to his throat, watching those kiss-plumped pink lips line his new wedding band. 

God! He loved this man so much, he didn’t even know what to do with himself. He sat there for a moment, watching, completely lost as to how he should respond, how he could begin to reciprocate the deep and abiding love he could feel with each press of Shiro’s lips.

Then their eyes connected in the dim light, and Keith could tell Shiro already knew. There had to be something in Keith’s eyes that Shiro could read plain as day, because Shiro’s face split wide with open joy.

“I love you, Shiro,” Keith said in a rush. “I’d marry you every day if it would make you happy.”

“Husband,” was all Shiro replied. He said the word with wonder, like it contained universes. Like it was the force that moved planets and aligned stars. 

Keith’s lips found Shiro’s in a soft kiss. He pulled his hands free then raised Shiro’s so he could kiss the small jewel imbedded in the dark band. 

“Till death do us part,” Keith whispered, eyes dark. 

He poured the whole of his heart into his next kiss. The words, the looks, the touches – none of it was enough. Keith needed more. He craved everything Shiro could give him, and wanted to lay all of himself out for Shiro in return. He was greedy and generous at the same time.

Their gentle kisses quickly evolved into a deep and abiding hunger. 

Keith’s fingers returned to Shiro’s buttons while Shiro’s hands began to work and knead at Keith’s ass. His touch made Keith wild with desire and he made a desperate sound when Shiro began to pull his hips down to meet Shiro’s. 

“Ta-kashi!” Keith moaned, his head tipping back even as his fingers continued to pull inefficiently at the fabric. “If you don’t get this shirt off soon, I’m going to rip it off you with my teeth.”

Shiro hissed at the idea and rolled upwards to meet the pull of Keith’s body against him. “Do it,” he urged, eyes glinting like steel in the moonlight.

Keith sank his teeth into the meat of Shiro’s neck instead, knowing they would owe the rental place too much money to replace the buttons. 

A change in the grip on his ass was the only warning before Keith found himself flipped onto his back with his husband heavy between his legs. Shiro leaned back and unbuttoned his shirt deftly before throwing it across the room. 

He reared back to sit on his heels as he pulled off his undershirt. He twisted his hips and curved his back as he did so, letting the play of muscles fascinate and delight. He moved slow, giving Keith a show while he exposed inch after inch of perfect flesh. Keith couldn’t stop his hands from reaching out to feel the tantalizing display of strength. He mapped out the hard lines of Shiro’s body with greedy fingers. 

“Now you, baby.”

Shiro dove down with a hungry noise and mouthed at Keith’s chest through his clothes while his fingers freed him from the confines of his wedding suit. 

“You looked so good in this damn white suit.”

“Ugh, Shiro…” Keith panted and clung to his husband, writhing uselessly beneath him. “You have no idea how good you looked in that black suit. I nearly ripped you out of it in the middle of the ceremony.”

“You should have. Would’ve made for a nice show.”

Keith laughed around a moan. “Yeah? I could have spread you out over the alter and pounded you as we said our vows.”

He meant it as a joke, they had been together long enough to have done away with the illusion that sex was serious business, but Shiro’s reaction was anything but a joke.

Upon hearing Keith’s words, Shiro made a noise from deep down in his chest that Keith had never heard before. It was primal and arousing. Shiro followed it up by taking Keith in a consuming kiss, and levelling all of his body weight down until Keith was surrounded and suffocating in Shiro. 

Keith clung on to Shiro, clawing at his back as he tried to keep up with Shiro’s sudden onslaught. 

“What was that?!” Keith gasped, minutes later when Shiro finally pulled back. 

Shiro blushed and ducked his head into Keith’s neck, hiding. 

Keith chuckled at Shiro’s sudden embarrassment. They slowed then, rocking against each other with less intent while Keith brushed absently at Shiro’s hair.

“I just want to know, babe. What did you like about that? Was it having people watch?” Slowly, Shiro shook his head. “Was it…” Keith thought for a moment until he felt it click into place, “taking me while we vow our undying love for each other?” He felt Shiro stiffen in his arms. The next rock of his hips ground Keith slow and rough into the mattress. “Hmm, husband?”

Shiro shuddered at the name. 

Oh ho ho!

“You like that, baby?”

“What I like,” Shiro said, punctuating his words with a thrust of his hips that knocked a bit of the air out of Keith’s lungs, “is knowing. That you’re mine. For the rest. Of your life. Husband.”

Keith whimpered. They were both so hard, so ready, but still somehow they were in far too many clothes. Keith could run his fingers over the length of smooth, heated skin on Shiro’s back, but he wanted more. He wanted their chests pressed together, he wanted their legs wrapped around each other, he wanted the sweaty stick of their flesh as they worked themselves into a frenzy.

“Shiro, get me out of these clothes, now.”

Shiro jumped at Keith’s command. He worked on the last of Keith’s buttons while Keith busied himself with their pants. 

Shiro pulled back and stripped the pants and underwear from Keith with a determination that was equal parts startling and arousing. The moment was then slightly marred by the awkward kicking Shiro had to do to get his own pants off, but Keith was willing to let that slide. 

Besides, Shiro more than made up for it a few seconds later when he crawled, slow and prowling, back up the bed to crowd over Keith.

All Shiro had to do was hover over Keith and put a hand to his side, and Keith understood his desires. Together they flipped themselves back around so that Shiro was on his back and Keith was making himself comfortable along Shiro’s torso. 

He lined Shiro’s chest with kisses and soft bites while Shiro’s strong hands maneuvered him just how he wanted. 

Pleased noises echoed through the bridal suite as their erections lined up and Keith rocked with the full force of his weight. 

Keith lost himself temporarily in the touch, and sound, and taste of Shiro. He revelled in the smooth give and take of their bodies as they writhed and pawed at each other. Their breaths were quick and panting, and their kisses grew sloppy with desire.

Finally, Keith pulled himself back to sit straddling Shiro, giving his new husband a show of his own while he reached down between them to take them both in hand.

“Feel good?” he asked, though the answer was written clearly on Shiro’s face. His eyes were closed, and his head tipped back into the pillows as he groaned and arched into the touch. “How do you want me, Shiro?”

“Keith… do me.”

Keith raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? You want me in you, baby? And after all those jokes Lance made about me being the bride?”

Shiro groaned and pulled Keith down for another full and sloppy kiss.

“I want to feel my husband fill me deep on my wedding night.” Shiro’s voice literally could not be any hotter if he tried, it was pure sex and adrenaline. 

Keith had already shifted to trail his fingers low and test the give of Shiro’s entrance. “Well if you put it like that, I might need to ride you too, after we’re done.”

Shiro arched at Keith’s words, and at the touch right where he wanted it most. “Yes, Keith… please…” he moaned, grabbing at the pillows behind him and opening his legs even wider.

“Where’s the lube, baby?”

“Shit… uhh…” Shiro leaned forward to glance around the room even as Keith’s finger continued to circle him. “That bag there.”

Keith moved off Shiro completely and pressed a kiss to the metal of his shoulder. “Get it.”

Shiro didn’t leave the bed, he just crawled to the edge on his hands and knees and stretched out, his arms slung over the side of the bed, to try and snag the bag close enough to pick it up. It was a perfect opportunity that Keith could not pass up. 

He moved close and grabbed handfuls of Shiro’s ass where it bounced before him.

“Hey,” Shiro cried with a laugh, “Keith!” he admonished. Then, “ _Keith_!” again as Keith pressed a wet and sloppy kiss between his two fists.

“Mmm, better find that lube,” Keith taunted before he licked a strip over Shiro’s asshole. He continued to knead and lick at Shiro’s ass while Shiro stretched himself off the bed. He listened to the sounds of Shiro pulling the bag close, unzipping it, and shuffling through it’s contents in search of the lube. He could even feel the play of muscles under his tight grip on Shiro’s cheeks as Shiro shifted himself more securely onto the bed. 

“Christ! Keith!” Shiro cried out as Keith began to add pressure and push his tongue into the tight circle of muscle. Keith just took that as incentive to do it again and again until Shiro started to sound hoarse and he desperately pressed the lube into Keith’s hand. 

Keith took the hint and greased up his fingers to add them into the mix. Within minutes Keith had transformed Shiro into a sopping, panting mess, his arms flung over the side of the bed, and his thighs shivering with pleasure. He was pretty proud of himself, to be sure.

He continued to work Shiro until he was loose and wanting, and so close to orgasm it would only take a few crooks of Keith’s fingers to have him spilling out onto the hotel bedsheets. Keith refrained only because Shiro had already requested to be mounted.

He had to guide Shiro back onto the bed and onto his back, and practically had to lift Shiro’s hips for him so he could slide a pillow underneath and prop him up.

“Keith,” Shiro whined. His eyes were dark and unfocused, his cheeks were a bright pink that matched his lips where he had bitten them to try and hold back some of the louder moans. He looked wanton and sex-starved, and he was seconds from orgasm, Keith was sure.

“You’re all ready for me, babe,” Keith said, laying protectively alongside Shiro to kiss lightly at his lips. “But I think I toyed with you too much. You need to calm down a bit.”

“We should do that more often,” Shiro said. 

“We should. You look good like this.” Keith kissed Shiro lightly again, then settled in at his side drawing a light hand along the length of his body. “You always look beyond handsome,” he added thoughtfully, his fingers drawing out the pattern of a particularly large scar at his side, “but you look especially good like this. All fucked out and needy. Desperate for your husband.”

Shiro whined at that. He took Keith’s arm by the wrist and goaded him lower. 

“Beautiful,” Keith murmured, his eyes devouring Shiro’s wanton expression as his fist closed around Shiro’s length. 

“Keith,” Shiro pleaded.

“You want to feel me?” Shiro nodded. “You want your husband to claim you on your wedding night?”

“Yes… please…” Shiro helped Keith along by grabbing the lube and slicking Keith’s dick.

“Oh, god, Shiro,” Keith whispered. His hips gyrated into Shiro’s wet fist.

Moments later, he was buried deep inside Shiro and moving in a slow grind. Shiro was groaning and begging for him to speed up, but Keith did no such thing.

“You wanted to feel me, babe.” He slid almost all the way out and then smoothly pressed himself back in to the hilt. “So feel me. I’m as deep as I can go, and I’m all yours.”

Keith was not usually one for slow sex, he didn’t have the patience, but this right here was perfect. Shiro was already so worked up from before that he was making the most amazing sounds and faces. Shiro was being undone beneath him, and Keith was enjoying the show just as he enjoyed the smooth, tight glide in and out of his husband.

Shiro was taking everything Keith had to give him, and he was doing it beautifully.

Going slow also meant that Keith felt every inch, every give and stretch of Shiro’s body around him. It was intoxicating in an entirely different way than usual. It gave Keith a chance to truly appreciate the intimacy of their embrace and the beauty of the moment.

Keith dropped a hand between them and began to pull at Shiro’s cock with equal slowness, paying special attention to the sensitive areas at the head before squeezing down his length. He watched as Shiro lost himself entirely to pleasure. He cried out nonsense words and sobbed Keith’s name. His eyes were shut, his muscles locked, his fists buried in the blankets beneath them. 

When he came, Keith felt every spasm of pleasure as it rocked through Shiro’s body and he was surprised to find his own release crash over him a moment later. 

It took longer than usual for Shiro to recover and come back to himself from their lovemaking. The afterglow sat high on his cheeks and dancing in his eyes for a long time while Keith wiped him down and covered him up. 

“You ok, Shiro?” he checked in at long last. 

“Perfect,” Shiro sighed happily, moving just enough to pull Keith under his arm and play with a lock of black hair between his finger and thumb. “I’m still in awe.”

“Of this?” Keith asked, lifting Shiro’s left hand to press another kiss to the shiny new wedding band.

“Yes. And just of you.”

“Me?”

Shiro huffed a small laugh, “Yes you. You and your perfection.”

“ _My_ perfection?” Keith asked, incredulous. “You’re the perfect one. Look at you!”

Shiro hummed thoughtfully, “Yes, look at me. You know, when I met you, I hated my scars?”

Keith didn’t answer, but a small noise in the back of his throat registered his surprise.

“I stopped trying to hide them after the first few months, but I still hated them. I thought they were ugly reminders of my pain. It wasn’t until I met you that I realized scars could be beautiful. Your scars are beautiful, and you’re beautiful with them. They show how strong you are. When I realized that, I started to look at myself differently too. My scars became beautiful just like yours.”

Keith reached up to bend Shiro’s head and press their foreheads together.

“I didn’t know that,” he said softly, his thumb tracing gently over the scar covering the bridge of Shiro’s nose. “Your scars have always been beautiful to me, Shiro. When we first met, we were so similar, looking at you was like looking at a mirror that showed me where I wanted to be.”

Keith found Shiro’s hand and linked fingers, lifting them so he could press another kiss against the curve of Shiro’s fingers. Shiro did the same to Keith’s fingers. 

They held each others gaze like they could see each others’ souls reflected there.

“I felt that too,” Shiro whispered. “It was like we shared the same pain. And now,” Shiro cracked a dazzling smile that stopped the breath in Keith’s lungs, “we share the same joy too.”

Keith didn’t have the presence of mind to roll his eyes at the extreme sentimentality of the moment because he was too busy feeling it deep within himself. 

It was nothing to close the distance between them again and press their lips into the sweetest of kisses. 

They lay in each other’s arms late into the night, staring into each others eyes, and exchanging sweet sentiments of their love for each other and their hopes for the future. 

Sometime late enough to be considered morning, the heat rose up between them again and Keith got his wish to ride his husband into a wedding-night coma. 

Later, they awoke for their first morning together as a married couple. And though the journey from thereon out was not always easy, they traversed it together, and they never looked back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe we're here and this is DONE! I'm not even sure what to do with myself now. I know i have stuff lined up for next time (though I think I'm going to have to go back to my old schedule of posting every 2nd weekend, because June's about to get real busy and I spent the last 2 months with writers block *please don't jinx me* so we'll see how it goes). 
> 
> Also, I love the idea of Krolia and Kolivan getting frisky on the dance floor. It just warms my heart.
> 
> So, the entire reason this fic exists is because I was reading rosegardenlake's Your Constellation Prize (which if you haven't read yet, GO DO IT because it's honestly one of the best fics I've ever read from any fandom: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16898082/chapters/39694557) and in an early chapter Shiro has a moment where he looks at Keith's cheek scar and thinks how their scars connect them. I immediately wanted a fic that just focuses on that idea and runs with it: Shiro and Keith finding comfort in their similar scars and helping each other heal. I wrote the first 2 chapters of this fic then and there. The scene here at the end when Shiro talks about Keith's scars is the entire reason I wrote this fic. <3 <3 <3
> 
> You should also check out With Every Brushstroke by voidslantern (https://archiveofourown.org/works/15766881/chapters/36675135) because I was re-reading it the other day and realized that that one influenced this fic a lot with me realizing. It's still in progress, but it's a slow burn that hurts _So Good_! Do yourself a favour and read it.
> 
> I want to thank you guys so much for sticking with me through this! Having your kudos and comments makes me feel so appreciated. I need that support because I have a couple long fics I've been working on for a year or more now that I'm nowhere near done and I don't really talk about them, so knowing you enjoy what I'm posting now helps me keep momentum on stuff I'm still working on because it keeps me hopeful that you'll enjoy what I've got coming.
> 
> Speaking about what I've got coming. Keep an eye open because next week or the week after I'm starting my Drag Race AU fic (like _Drag_ drag, not racing drag) and I just re-read it and added an extra chapter to it and I LOVE it!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> So, this fic is pretty well entirely written, I'm just still hammering out the last chapter. I'm planning on doing biweekly updates, sometime during the weekend. It won't be at the same time every time, because I'm not reliable like that lol. Though I will say, the more kudos and comments I get, the more likely I am to post earlier in the weekend. ^.^
> 
> You can find me on tumblr or twitter. I don't post much, but I always post for new chapters and new fics. <3  
> Tumblr: WatermelonTuesdays  
> Twitter: @WTuesdays


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